Dumbledore's Journal
by Khelek-sul Renai
Summary: Albus Dumbledore works three full time jobs-at the end of the day, a pensive just is not enough to sort out and record all his memories, so he keeps a journal. Starts in 1989, On Permanent Hiatus.
1. February 4th

AN: Welcome to Dumbledore's Journals. Fair warning:there will be a lot of OCs in this: ICW and Wizengamot members, the DADA teachers before the 1991-92 school year, and a lot of students.

I'm trying to keep this canon, so if you see any glaring inaccuracies, please let me know!

* * *

Saturday, February 4, 1989 

Bagnold announced her intention to retire around the end of the year today. At first I thought this was a good thing; she was a war minister and good at both that and leading us back to normal, but she does not lead as well in this time of politics rather than clearing conflict. Then, less than two hours after the announcement and only half an hour after I returned from listening to Bagnold's address at the ministry, Undersecretary Perks showed up in my office to ask that I submit my candidacy for Minister of Magic. I would not even need to take the time to campaign for the job because "no one would seriously run against you!" Like that is some form of incentive to take on even more work. I'm a teacher, that's all I ever wanted to be. I now have to juggle work as the Headmaster, Chief Warlock, and Supreme Mugwump; when did Kenneth Perks think I would gain the time to take on more responsibilities? Why was that not thought of by any of those who accosted me before or after today's Wizengamot meeting? I already have to depend on Minerva for far more than I would have dreamed of willingly setting aside when I accepted the office. I've had to set aside even more in the past years, more than I did even during the leading of the Order of the Phoenix! Really, when would I even get the time, without turning one of my positions into a purely ceremonial one?

Most people at age 99 are considering retirement, not being asked to take on more work.


	2. February 5th

Sunday, February 5, 1989

For all that I approve of Bagnold's decision to step down- even if my reasoning yesterday did not suffice, Bagnold has had a fractious relationship with the ICW since the trials after Voldemort's fall, which has caused problems with my being the Head of the ICW and one of her citizens—I did not expect it; nor does it seem, did anyone else. When trying to get to today's Wizengamot meeting, I was stopped no less than 18 times, not counting the conversations in the elevator, asking if I had known that Bagnold would be resigning soon, since surely she would have had the courtesy to forewarn the Chief Warlock? They do not seem to account for the fact that since I hold more than just the one position, the current relationship between the Minister and the Chief Warlock is not as close as is traditional, and that even if I did work less—or even if I had never faced her across the courtroom as I had with the ICW—we do not like each other. We both respect one another—England would not have made it out of the War as intact as we did without Bagnold's hand on the reins and I know it; but we disagree enough that the chaos caused by her dropping this bombshell without warning is just the thing she would enjoy. Now the hard part: how to not let that fact leak to the press…


	3. February 6th

Monday, February 6, 1989

I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts, not the leader of Britain. That is Bagnold's job, at least for a few more months. The Chief Warlock's job is to ride herd on the Wizengamot, not all of Great Britain, go ask Questions of them, not me and STOP TRESPASSING!

One good point of the day: Pomona's expedition into the Forbidden Forest with her NEWT students was a rousing success and the entire student body was so busy talking about it in the evening that they did not make note of my barrage of visitors.


	4. February 7th

Tuesday, February 7, 1989

Today started with an emergency staff meeting before classes on how we were going to deal with the non-school faculty adults that keep invading. After my meeting with Perks Saturday, at his urging, I returned to the ministry early for the Wizengamot meeting. Half of Sunday was spent in the ICW offices and the other again in the ministry, so I had not realized how many reporters and publications had not yet managed to get my picture and some quote on this topic until Monday, when less than half of them had the sense to floo me directly or even the courtesy to send me owls asking for my floo address and when I could speak to them. No, instead a number of them just showed up at random times throughout the day and then proceeded to try to wander the halls because they had neither the password to my office or the sense to inform the gargoyle that they were here to see me. The gargoyle only reacts to being directly addressed after all!

The number of other witches and wizards that also showed up for an "urgent meeting" to ask the same things—'will you be the next minister of magic' or 'who should be the next Minister of Magic'—was frankly just ridiculous. The entirety of Magical Britain should not just be an extension of Hogwarts!

So, emergency staff meeting to figure out how to deal with this was definitely necessary. We cannot have just anyone entering the school and school grounds at any time; it's not safe for the students. The staff had a number of suggestions, but in the end we went with Severus' second suggestion (his first—locking the gates, stopping the floo, and locking down the wards so no one could even try to come in—was unfortunately denied by Minerva). Hagrid spent the day out by the gates to let in anyone who showed up, with the wards locked down enough that no one could just fly in over the gates, but would have to walk through. Hagrid would escort them to the building, locking the gate so anyone who came before he returned would have to wait, and then activate a keystone to alert me to visitors in my new temporary office—the small room right off the entrance to the main hall. Mimsy the house-elf watched my floo to tell me when I got visitors there.

It worked surprisingly well but I still ended up visited by two different members of the school board, both asking me when I would announce my resignation from Hogwarts so that I could run for Minister.


	5. February 8th

Wednesday, February 8, 1989

The only good thing I can say about today's ICW meeting was that it kept me from reporters asking about Bagnold—instead, the questions came from politicians. Also, today's session ended early enough that I was able to catch the tail end of dinner at Hogwarts. Admittedly, it only ended that early because the representatives from the Magical Congress of the United States and the Council of Kiribati ended up dueling on the floor, and security had to step in and put a stop to it. No one is entirely certain what prompted that. I'll have to check if it was determined before the next meeting.


	6. February 9th

Thursday, February 9th, 1989

Things have died down some—it probably helps that the Daily Prophet announced that I would be spending this Saturday at the ministry, though I had no plans to do so before Minerva mentioned it being in their article. With the Wizengamot meetings tomorrow and Monday, along with the two full trials Sunday the normal Saturday Wizengamot meeting had been canceled, so I did not have other plans, at least. But the announcement of my presence has not stopped everyone; I might take Severus's first idea of how to deal with things if anyone tries to interrupt tomorrow afternoon when I am helping students. My time in Classroom E-13 is the only time I really get to teach anymore and I refuse to stint my current students just because I failed to keep their parents from turning into sheep!

I turned them down when I was asked before I was Headmaster, I turned it down during the war, why would anyone think I wanted to me Minister of Magic now?


	7. February 10th

Friday February 10th, 1989

If Master Flamel Nicholas (both he and Lady Perenelle would curse me if they learned that I still often think of them by the titles I used in my apprenticeship rather than by their first names) was still taking apprentices, or even just teaching classes of students, I would recommend everyone that came to E-13 today to start immediately, even the two first years. It started when Henry Miller came in to ask for another recommendation; the apprenticeship he had already applied to had been filled by someone who could start before young Henry graduates this spring. Of course I was willing, I was the one who suggested this other apprenticeship in the first place, but I quizzed him on some of the alchemical theorems we had spoken on last week anyway. One of the third years overheard and asked a question on it, and before long Henry was leading an enthusiastic alchemical discussion that dragged everyone who came to the classroom into it. I even have a couple ideas I would like to check if I have the time—I'll owl them to the Flammels after I finish this.

I doubt even half the questions people came there with today were answered; however no one seemed to leave disappointed, so I will take this as a good sign.


	8. February 11th

Saturday, February 11th, 1989

I have my hands full keeping track of the students, the ICW, and the Wizengamot, so when would I have time to figure out which members of the Ministry are even interested in the position, not to mention have the right experience? I can give them my opinion on the candidates after the candidates have been nominated, don't ask me who the nominees should be!


	9. February 12th

A/N: Sorry about the crazy series of updates/removals that just happened; I was just trying to change the chapter title, as I realized I forgot to capitalize the F in February, but the only way I could find to get it to do so was to delete and re-upload the chapter. If anyone knows at different way, please PM me so I do not have to do this again!

Sunday, February 12th, 1989

While our first trial was of little note, our second was a clear win for justice over pureblood bigotry. Nearly everyone knows that Catrina Embercoff was a Death Eater during the War, but she got away unscathed due to some ludicrous bribery during her trial despite overwhelming evidence. Yet, today, she is finally getting locked away for bribery and corruption charges. Taking the bribe of an undercover Auror meant to investigate you, right after someone you tried to bribe turning you down and reported you to the Aurors, is not the wisest of plans.

Embercoff is older than Griselda Marchbanks; we may lose her to the shock of the change in her circumstances before she even reaches Azkaban. I can't say that I will be sorry about it.


	10. February 13th

Monday February 13th, 1989

So that I remember when I go back looking through these journals for the date—today was the first proposal of Brandon's Law, an overhaul of the laws to do with libel and slander. The moneyed probably will not go for it, due to it being championed mainly by the late Brandon Spencer's muggleborn lower wealth mother.

I missed the excitement of the past Hogsmeade weekend with the time I just spent in the Ministry, but since I did not miss today's breakfast or dinner the other professors were all too glad to fill me in, as I apparently lost eight bets in the betting pool, and the only one I did win, I am splitting it's pot with Hagrid. Three couples that I did not see getting together yet, two broke up—one before they even made it to Hogsmeade—two have not gotten together yet and there was a different person behind the mural newly added to the sixth floor than I thought. I was right about why someone's been sneaking into the Greenhouses, however! (Hagrid was right about who it was.)

I wonder if I am too lenient on the staff's betting on the student's lives…


	11. February 14th

A/N: Sorry for not posting this yesterday, I don't have a good excuse, just forgot that it was not already up.

Tuesday, February 14th, 1989

I am going to be incredibly sorry to see young Ms. Page graduate at the end of the year, breaking up the Page-Higgs-Selwyn triumvirate for Pranking. They pulled off another lovely one today—in the spirit of Anti-Valentine's Day the entire great Hall is decorated as if today was Halloween, including floating Jack-o-Lanterns rather than just floating candles. They probably did most of the charm and transfiguration work last night with the charm delay spell Filius mentioned was the focus of one of Ms. Page's NEWT Charm's essays and some delayed disguise spells for the transfigurations. I'm not sure how else they could have pulled off the decorations appearing right at the start of dinner!

Mr. Higgs also wooed the house elves into making appropriate food for the occasion. That was confirmed by Minerva speaking to the house elves, and the appropriate detention was awarded. But the House elves did not mention any co-conspirators and there was no word of one from Mr. Higgs, so Ms. Selwyn is getting away without issue, despite most of the staff being able to guess that they are as thick as thieves. It really is a credit to their planning skills that Miss Selwyn has only been caught assisting the pranks a dozen times in the past six years and the majority of those were before her third year when they incorporated Ms. Page into their group. None of the staff excepting Aurora is aware of Ms. Page's work with the pranksters—she surely would not have been nominated as Ravenclaw prefect and still held up as a model student otherwise! She seems like she moves in such different circles, this book-obsessed muggleborn Ravenclaw, from her partners in crime, two ambitious pureblooded Slytherins that seem to share their families' disdain for muggleborns. Even I would not suspect them if Aurora had not stopped me that night three years ago before I took a step too far and tripped their improvised warding line, and then watched them closely since.

Truly Aurora knows more of the gossip in the castle than anyone else; for all that she is rarely awake during the daylight hours. Everyone with secrets to hide end up sneaking around during the nighttime hours, and normally that sneaking is done on the day their year has astronomy, so that they have an excuse to be out after curfew if caught and they get to sleep in the next morning. It really is a good thing for the students sake that their astronomy teacher is as close lipped as Poppy, though it does cause problems with the staff betting pools, since half the time she cleans the rest of us out and the other half she is deliberately trying to throw us off track with her wagers.


	12. February 15th

Wednesday, February 15th, 1989

Of all the things to be dueling about, it had to be Quodpot. One more reason not to like the sport. Both representatives involved in the duel last week have been personally fined, and, in an unprecedentedly quick move from the ICW's judicial branch, both of the governments have also been reprimanded over the course of the past week. Kiribati has suspended their delegate with a substitute arriving today; the United States says they are protesting the fine and stand by their representative's defense of their national sport. Today's meeting was needlessly tense.


	13. February 16th

Thursday, February 16th, 1989

Another day, another meeting. Or another lot of meetings. Board of Governors (end of year gathering for NEWT students,) Wizengamot (investigation into rules of length of trail breaks,) ICW (International Unspeakables Division, subset Dragons/Alchemy) and second ICW meeting (Muggle Technology Deception Squad.) Unfortunately, the meeting with the Dragons/Alchemy Unspeakables ran overlong, so I had to cancel tea with the Scamanders before they went off to Brazil. Even with that canceled, I still had to go directly from that first ICW meeting to the second one. (The first was in Chad, the second in Germany, neither held in the building attached to the international floos.)

Argus, Aurora, and the Fourth years headed to Aurora's class were the only humans awake in the castle by the time I returned. As soon as this Late-Wake potion I received in Germany wears off, it will only be them.

For future reference: Late-Wake has less obvious side effects than Pepper-Up, but does not clear up headaches also caused by lack of sleep. Stick to Pepper-Up when smoke from ears will not cause problems.


	14. February 17th

Friday February 17, 1989

Minerva came down sick this morning. It wasn't anything Poppy could not fix with a potion, a spell and an enforced two hours of rest—but, unfortunately, by the time Minerva went to Poppy, that meant missing one of today's classes. Wilhelmina Grubbly-plank has a strong enough background in Transfiguration that she could cover any of the first four years—but the class is sixth year. She has in her contract that she never needs to cover for DADA or Transfiguration above 4th year, as she has enough work keeping up with all the advances and staying at above NEWT level proficiency in all the other subjects taught here.

I ended up sending Fawkes with a note to Griselda Marchbanks, postponing the meeting to after tomorrow's Wizengamot session rather than today, and covering the class myself. I think my lecture ended up rather well received and Minerva was not even angry about the puppies when Poppy allowed her to return to her classroom.

Today's tutoring session was sadly boring, though rather more productive than last weeks.


	15. February 18th

Saturday, February 18, 1989

Five different bills proposed today, all debated and put to a vote—and not one to pass. None of the bills were highly controversial and three have been kicked back to their sponsors to have clauses rewritten, added or removed, so there were no great victories today for any faction. Today must just seem like a lazy day—nearly a fifth of the Wizengamot did not even bother to show up.

Madam Marchbanks and I ended up holding our meeting at Carkitt Market's Hopping Pub rather than staying after at the Ministry since we both felt we could use a drink, and this meeting was basically to confirm the normal preparation for the examiners to arrive and stay at Hogwarts for OWLs and NEWTs were taking place at their normal pace. As both Argus and Mitzy the House-elf assure me they are, this was a very relaxing way to end the day.


	16. February 19th

Sunday, February 19th, 1989

Fawkes got rather angry with me today. After this evening's (non-emergency, thank Merlin) staff meeting, I had a meeting with the ICW representative from New Zealand. The permanent international floos in the ICW headquarters makes meeting people much easier while staying at home, but organizing things between time zones can be a major hassle- I was more tired than I expected to be when we set up the meeting, that's the only excuse I can come up with for not actually critically reading through the bill the ambassador presented me for possible introduction in the next session. I skimmed it while meeting her, and approved the introduction; it seemed to make sense. Then I returned to my Hogwarts office rather than my ICW one and Fawkes shrieked at me. I was unable to figure out why he was angry until I set my copy of the bill on the desk; he knocked some of the pages aside and literally burned up half the page to underline one section. Somehow that witch managed to stick a clause preventing Purebloods living in a country other than the one their lines originated in from practicing the traditions of their ancestral cultures, even the traditions that are _also_ practiced by the Purebloods in the countries they now reside into a bill about international trade agreements. Allowing countries to uphold the refusal to grandfather in some traditions that are against their laws, like allowing England to uphold its Carpet Ban is one thing; not allowing a Germanic Pureblood living in New Zealand to hold a Yule feast by international law (which is what this clause is probably about) is a different one. If I'm making this sort of stumble in the cause of the light, I really need to take a break.


	17. February 20th

Monday, February 20th, 1989

Fawkes' opinion of me has not improved with the coming of morning. The last gift Aberforth gave me was a trinket with one of the most obnoxious alarm charms built in that I have ever encountered, where you actually need to be awake enough to cast the finicky countercharm to turn it off each morning. It has been successfully waking me for almost eight years. But today I woke up to Fawkes setting it and almost my beard next to it on fire.

I have another alarm in my office that I can use, but it's a gift from an old student, not my brother. It's a simple metal bar held over what looks like a plate, but I have not been able to determine what the plate was made from. It needs to be reset with the correct countdown (days, hours, minutes, seconds,) and the bar end placed back above the plate each time you use it, as at the designated time the bar will crash down and screech until the end is moved off. Not the most eloquent option, but it should get me up.


	18. February 21st

Tuesday February 21st, 1989

As a general rule, when House Ghosts catch a student misbehaving, sneaking about after lights out, or other rule breaking, they either lecture the students or bring them to the appropriate staff member to deal with rather than met out punishment. I am unsure I wish to know what the Slytherins did to result in the Bloody Baron giving them a detention while the Grey Lady was escorting them to Severus. (The Hufflepuffs from the same altercation that Sir Nicholas was escorting came off rather lightly in comparison, only having to deal with Pomona—they just have essays to write and lost points.)

Severus mentioned their attempts to appeal the detentions since they did not come from a living staff member at dinner. Those ghosts have been here longer than any of us—did the students really think any of the living staff would go against their orders? Even Binns has stories from our times as students, basically blackmail, on all of us!


	19. February 22nd

Wednesday, February 22nd, 1989

Dinner is more than occasionally the highlight of my days, and today proved no exception. Aurora showed up for her breakfast, which she has not done for over two weeks at this point. I doubt she is actually as ignorant of current gossip as she made herself out to be, but things are undoubtedly different from either what she has overheard from the students or one on one conversations with no other person to offer corrections—or "corrections"—to the tale. Two different misunderstandings were sorted out, one student is getting detention as soon as Filius corners him for lies, and then Aurora mentioned Quidditch. Minerva and Severus ended up squabbling for the rest of the meal about their teams and who would win the cup. Filius actually joined in for some of it, and he has a point—Ravenclaw has a very strong team right now—but I think it will go to Hufflepuff. Their beaters are beyond the level of school sports.

If the two of them are not grabbed up as a pair by a professional team within a month of their leaving this June, I'll give up Lemon Drops.


	20. February 23rd

Thursday, February 23rd, 1989

An unusual group of students, including all years and all four Houses, approached me after dinner today. Henry Miller was not their leader but he ended up nominated their spokesperson after the first two people to try to speak to me and lost their courage. It was only then I realized all but two of the group were at the tutoring group two weeks ago.

It was with great disappointment that I had to turn down their request to be the staff mentor of the Alchemy Club the group wished to form, though I did promise to attend whenever I could or answer any questions that were passed to me. Luckily I was able to direct then to a staff member who could sponsor the club and would be able to answer a number of the questions immediately without waiting for me—Irma. A lot of people forget she originally took the post of assistant librarian to Temeritus Shanks to get access to our Restricted Section for her Mastery project in Alchemy and just never left the Library.

Irma agreed as soon as the idea was put to her, and has stated that she will find someone else—probably a ghost or occasionally Wilhelmina or Rolanda—to watch the library during the group meetings. I know she is fiercely protective of that library, but it has been a long time since I have seen her as genuinely happy as she was when she realized that the children were serious about the club.


	21. February 24th

Friday, February 24th, 1989

I had to shepherd the newly forming Alchemy club to a corner of classroom E-13 during tutoring, as over half the group showed up to barrage me with questions they did not wish to ask Irma yesterday- I answered some, but my priority had to be with the students that came with questions on classes that they were currently taking. I enjoyed answering their questions, but I am sure that once they realize that Irma, when speaking of her subject and away from her domain, is not actually as terrifying as they think she is, I am sure these questions will stop.

This morning's meeting at the Ministry of Magic, however, ended up being a complete waste of time. Somehow, this committee ended up consisting of over half of its members being more interested in Pureblood politics than anything else, and a quarter that only wants to advance their personal wealth, leaving less than a quarter trying to do what is best for the average wizard and witch. Normally these committees are made up of slightly over half people just wanting to do their job, with the rest some mix of personal advancement, Pureblood politics, moneyed politics, and idealists. I'm not sure how we ended up with a committee the other way around, but basically it resulted in nothing happening through the entire meeting.


	22. February 25th

Saturday, February 25th, 1989

It's been a long time since I've needed to resort to time magic to fulfill all of my responsibilities. Granted, I have to lean hard enough on my deputies that the argument can (and has) been made that I'm not actually fulfilling any of them, but my deputies all assure me that they can handle it.

But, missing today's Wizengamot meeting would have been a disaster, and that bill the New Zealand representative wanted was to be set forth today, so I could not miss that meeting either, no matter how much I trust my current Under Mugwump. She's a fierce witch and could handle this on her own, since I told her about the problematic clause in our usual Tuesday meetings, but this was my mistake, I should be there.

I went down to the Department of Mysteries after the Wizengamot session to check out a time turner, if they still had one of the right duration in stock. Time turner borrowing is normally done by owl, since it is not highly restricted if you are of age and have filled out all the paperwork, but the week has been busy enough that I forgot to petition for one.

I've never figured out if there is a secretary Unspeakable, or if whichever Unspeakable is closest just heads to the entrance if someone not of their number arrives on their floor, but I was greeted right away. A quick explanation of my presence, an hour of paperwork and an identification verification spell landed me the time turner through Thursday and the suggestion that I either take a nap before using it or go back far enough that I can take a nap and then head to the ICW meeting—the Unspeakable was somehow aware that the ICW session today was abnormally long. I took the first suggestion.

Turned out the proper one to take, too, as the ICW session did not even end until after younger me had flipped over the time turner.


	23. February 26th

Sunday, February 26th, 1989

I must have been more tired than I thought even in the half awake state in which I wrote my entry last night. I forgot to set my alarm spell thus not waking until almost lunchtime—and I had two morning meetings! One was with a Prophet writer about the names that are coming up as Bagnold's most likely successor and a more important one with Minerva about the school budget. I scolded Fawkes for not waking me, but he seemed entirely uninterested in my words, except to hop over to the time turner and trill pointedly. I ended up using it again just to not miss those meetings, and the rest of the day remained just as hectic. At least the staff meeting did not dissolve into Pomona and Severus bickering over whether the living plants (for herbology) or dead ones (for potions usage) were more important again.


	24. February 27th

Monday, February 27th, 1989

I overslept again today and had to use the time turner again to complete my morning plans. I would have sworn that I double-checked my alarms last night after forgetting before!

Nothing unusual happened today, beyond Sybil joining us all for dinner. Minerva barely kept her disdain controlled, which is sad, as I think that is all that kept her from noticing some rather startling coincidences. I'm not too proud to admit that after her prophecy and how different she was while delivering it, I wrote most of the rest of her off. I think Silvanus saw it first, and he definitely was the first to say something of it. Which makes sense with his work with magical creatures. But the rest of the staff, myself included, sans Minerva, has come to agree with him. Sybil Trelawney, while no prophetess, is an extremely gifted seer, but wish and flair for the dramatic also means she is _extremely_ _horrendous_ at interpreting what she sees.

It's a long learned lesson to not speak of what Sybil says around Minerva, but I have no doubt that outside her presence, Sybil's comments and proclamations will be the main topic of gossip among the professors this week, as we try to make out what they really mean. I'm fairly certain one comment means the Head Girl has finally started dating the witch she has been dancing around for the past three years, thus "killing" many a young wizard's heart, but I do not have the slightest idea what the comment about uncontrolled emotion turning a teacher's hair blue actually meant.


	25. February 28th

Tuesday, February 28th, 1989

I have figured out why I have been sleeping in, and it is not because I had become suddenly and worryingly forgetful.

My alarm did not wake me again this morning, and I had a meeting with Rolanda and Minerva about a new plan to get the Board of Governors to okay the purchase of new broomsticks, again. I have a fair amount of leeway with the discretionary funds, but not enough to get all the brooms needed without the Board's approval… So I used the time turner again, sending myself far enough back that I appeared in my bedroom less than a minute before the spell should have gone off—just in time to watch Fawkes rouse himself from his perch. He was very deliberately watching me, rather than my sleeping self as he landed by my bedside and moved the one silver wire that would disrupt the spell nexus to the off position. Clearly Fawkes wanted me to get extra sleep, even if I have to use time magic and extend my day in order to do so.


	26. March 1st

Wednesday, March 1st, 1989

The ICW meeting today lasted just as long as it was supposed to, but no longer than that, so I was sure I would be able to get to Hogwarts in time to catch the end of dinner even with my plan to stop by the DoM to return the time turner tonight. But I was waylaid multiple times on my way to the main teleportation room. First it was by our lovely New Zealand representative, who is rather unhappy with the revisions the committee appointed to revise it have come up with—she was definitely trying to get the bill through to pass a personal vendetta. Without that clause, she may end up turning into one of its bitterest opponents—even if the only medium of enforcement so far introduced is the retightening of trade restrictions that this bill seems designed to loosen, it gives far more power to the ICW to restrict a nations independent choices than many countries wish, and New Zealand has been particularly vocal in the past about not wanting the ICW to mess with her country's laws. Then, two representatives from South America stopped me—I only recognized one, I need to check on that—having overheard her remarks. And it all did not stop until I was far past time for dinner. I know I could just order from the house-elves, but, after a day of corralling supposedly mature and honorable adults that have been acting like squabbling children, I need the comfort of being surrounded by actual squabbling children.

So I gave into temptation and used the time turner again to reach Hogwarts for the start of dinner, which combined with my morning's use of it gives me a nice solid 29-hour day. I'll return the time turner in the morning.


	27. March 2nd

Thursday, March 2nd, 1989

It has been months, or probably more accurately, years since I have been as well rested as I have been these past five days. I did not even bother casting the alarm spell last night, instead using the time turner for the last time this morning. I know better than to abuse Pepper-up potions, but I cannot remember the last time I was not tempted to ask Poppy for some I could add to my morning tea. For that matter, I do not remember when I was last happy to get up and only have one cup of tea, rather than one pot of tea, in the morning. Even going back to my normal sleep schedule, the way I will have to tomorrow, will be much easier after these days of rest. Sometime this summer I am going to have to take an actual vacation and fully rest; if this is how much better I feel after less than a week of sleeping in, rather than just use the decrease in schoolwork as a chance to catch up on all the meetings and paperwork that I have to put off for the Wizengamot and the ICW.

Most of today was spent catching back up on Hogwarts paperwork—everything has at least been looked at now, most of it signed, filled out and sent on, Silvanus' traditional end of year request for a dragon for his NEWT students has been denied, and Filius' request to turn an unused classroom into a dueling room so that four of the students (two Slytherins, a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor) interested in joining the junior dueling circuit can gain some experience and have a better idea of just what they are getting into was sent back to the charms professor—I need more detail on what Filius plans to do with the room before I sign.

I returned the time-turner this afternoon after a short meeting with Madam Longbottom in the Ministry. I am now sure that the MacMillian Proposal will have her vocal backing when it goes to vote, and very few people even in the Wizengamot will oppose the Longbottom Matriarch when she has made her support plain, especially about a bill to increase support for Aurors hurt on the job.

Now back to the days where I don't have the luxury of sleeping in…


	28. March 3rd

Friday, March 3rd, 1989

Why is the Board of Governors so against taking our students on trips? We have few enough teachers here that I can understand, and have in fact made to the professors proposing the trips, the arguments about leaving students unsupervised or wanting more chaperones for trips. The counter argument can be made from Hogsmeade weekends, however, as many staff members also take the excuse to head to the village and students have far less supervision while they run around the village than they would on a school trip.

It's an argument we have been having for years now, considering how often my teachers send proposals to take students off site across my desk. Most of the proposals cost unbudgeted funds and need extra hired man power, if only in order to see to transportation, and thus must get the approval of the majority of the Board before they can proceed. Pomona's trip thru the Forbidden Forest did not require extra funds, I asked the centaurs to keep an eye on the students, which they agreed to do, and they technically never left school property. It did mean that other Herbology classes were watched over by Wilhelmina or canceled for a day, and the NEWT students missed their other classes for that Monday.

Somehow, not running this through the Board was against school regulations and the fact they are learning of the trip only afterwards is worse. (It is not against regulations. I double-checked with the Headmaster Portraits once I returned to my office.)

This has been a staple trip since the third year Pomona accepted the Herbology position, it is just that this year is the first we have had enough people in the NEWT class choosing to make the trip that their disappearance for a weekend was fully noted by students from other years. The meeting was ridiculous. I do not like how much power the Board thinks they have over my school.


	29. March 4th

Saturday, March 4th, 1989

We have many votes and arguments over many issues in the Wizengamot, and I know that as Chief Warlock they should all have the same weight to me, but today there was only one that I really cared about. According to the reports from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes' Office of Safety and the follow-up report from the Unspeakables the last strands of magic from the accident on Platform 9 ¾ have finally faded enough that the Platform could be reset for use again. Who would have thought it would take over five years to clean up, back when it happened at the start of the 1984 term?

I could remember the report as if it were yesterday, even without today's recap of the situation: two witches apparated into the exact same space simultaneously, which should not have been possible, except that the witch side-along apparating her soon-to-be-first-year son had splinched herself in the process. The place where they appeared happened to be right in between two hot-headed parents dueling right as station security attempted to stun the duelers, resulting in them taking the full blunt of the spell barrage. Even with the son's accidental magic flaring up in belated defense this probably would have been only days of clean up if the combination of spells had not acted as an amplifier. (Peter Edgecombe's treatise on how that all worked is fascinating, as are the power amplification spells that have come from it, temporary and not yet fully reliable though they may be.) The biggest problem for clean up still was not that, though, but the large number of accidental magic flare-ups that this first spell mess caused from underage siblings, new first years, most of the second years, a number of the third years, and according to the reports even some of the fourth years and two of the fifth years.

The Hogwarts Express itself escaped damage, but it has had to leave from other platforms and disrupt other wizarding train schedules since. The vote to official reopen the platform for the Easter Holidays was more a perfunctory one that a question of actual debate, but it makes me extremely pleased. If I never have to deal with the King's Cross Wizarding Station Master in official capacity ever again, it will be too soon—he could give Aberforth competition in glares and guilt trips.


	30. March 5th

Sunday, March 5th, 1989

The Alchemy club had their first official meeting today. I may have neglected some of the paperwork for the ICW and the Wizengamot meetings in order to attend the second half of the club meeting. It went exceedingly well—apparently they had already voted in a leadership form before the first meeting, and they were doing a very, very basic exercise to give over half the group their first practical experience with Alchemy while I was present.

At least I did manage to fill out the paperwork I was supposed to give to Minerva yesterday before I saw her at the staff meeting today.


	31. March 6th

Monday, March 6th, 1989

At dinner today I announced that the students going home for Easter break would be using Platform 9 ¾.

I know its much further in advance than I have been announcing the Platform number for the other breaks, but I am too excited by the news to keep it just to the staff, whom I told at yesterday's staff meeting. It did not have the emotional impact on most of the students as it did on me, as they were young enough when they last saw it not to be as emotionally connected or their main connections were to the trauma of the incident that left most of the Hogwarts population in the Hospital Wing before they even reached the school, but there was still a gratifying amount of cheering when I announced the fix. Amusingly, young William Kirkland, the same wizard whose mother's splinching accident helped start the entire thing, actually jumped on top of the table and cheered loudest. Minerva almost gave him a detention—would have, in fact, if Severus had not "accidently" bumped into her chair just then. Mr. Kirkland might not be a Slytherin, but he is an incredibly gifted potioneer with a passion for the art, and for all that Severus hides it well, he is incredibly protective of anyone who loves his subject.

Fawkes, in all his near-burning-day glory has pulled out part of my night robes and is trilling most incessantly. I need to listen and get to sleep before he decides to use my wardrobe as his burning nest. Again.


	32. March 7th

Tuesday, March 7th, 1989

Silvanus sent Mr. Higgs to my office today, apparently catching him sneaking into the room where the Ashwinder fires and frozen eggs are kept. Silvanus' note said he would have dealt with "everything" himself, but a new Ashwinder was just about to leave its fires… From the sound of things, the Pranking Trio may have heard of the Fountain of Fair Fortune incident and decided to stage a re-enactment. Or, equally likely, they decided that implying they were trying for this and having Mr. Higgs caught in the process was the best cover they could come up with for whatever they actually are planning.

Once my office was again empty, the Sorting Hat spoke up—it seems that it has finally found its inspiration for next year's song, and it will be about the different types of pranks and pranksters found in each House. More than one portrait objected to the idea. I do not know how long they kept arguing or what the outcome was—I set up a silence spell around my desk after the first five minutes.


	33. March 8th

Wednesday, March 8th, 1989

Sometimes I hate that there are so many power hungry idiots in the ICW that I cannot trust someone with even halfway decent intentions would take up the position of Supreme Warlock if I just walked out and handed in my resignation.

Aberforth may have me but he will also keep quiet about my presence and as long as I pay, keep me supplied in enough Firewhiskey for a vicious hangover tomorrow—the hangover is the sort of petty revenge he'll enjoy, and I wont be able to think about the ICW meeting through the pain. Win-Win all around.


	34. March 9th

Thursday March 9th, 1989

I forgot that I had a meeting with three members of the Board of Governors when I made my plans last night. Fawkes does not approve of overdrinking and has never helped me in dealing with a hangover before—something Aberforth is fully aware of—but today sang enough for me to get ready for the day and stumble over to the fireplace to request a hangover cure from Poppy. Apparently, Fawkes liked the idea of my going to the meeting at obviously less than full capacity even less than he likes overdrinking. Considering the meeting included my official first meeting with Lucius Malfoy as a member of the Board, I do not disagree with Fawkes' assessment.

Poppy was also less than amused at my use of part of her hangover stash—"like a newly turned seventeen-year-old who doesn't know any better"—but she did not have to deal with the ICW yesterday, or have to go back and try to continue dealing with that mess this afternoon.


	35. March 10th

Friday, March 10th, 1989

Filius finally finished the completed proposal for turning a classroom into a dueling arena, and it is even more thorough than I had hoped. Beyond the outline of additional charms and other spells he plans to show the students, he has a list of the protections required for both the area cleared to be the dueling ring and the rest of the room, and—this is what I am most please with—a list of charms and wards that combined, should bring about those effects. Hogwarts' budget will not bend enough for us to bring in a professional warder to make a room dueling standard, but this we should be able to do and do without bringing in outside assistance, so I will not need to wait on the Board's approval.

This will have to be a joint effort; it will take more time than any one teacher has without making them sacrifice grading, but it would need to be multiple people because of separate masteries anyway.

Filius will need to do some of the more complicated shield charms and Rolanda's experience with testing and anchoring wards for the quidditch pitch should make her able to anchor those charms to base wards once Filius casts them. Babbling and Vector should be helpful in working these together…

Most of this spell list is fairly basic as long as you are completely competent in the fields. Once I choose a day to start this, as long as none of the teachers are sick and need a substitute, Wilhelmina should be able to do a large portion of this, with others popping in and out as their class schedules allow.

I'm going to either need to grant a number of favors or pay out some larger than normal bonuses at the end of this week.


	36. March 11th

Saturday, March 11th, 1989

As normal, I took an early breakfast in the Great Hall today so that I could reach the Ministry early for the Wizengamot meeting. Severus often reaches breakfast before me, and this day was no exception. More surprisingly, Zachariah and Quirinus were there along with Rolanda and a larger number of early risers than normally come to the first shift of weekend breakfast. I took the opportunity provided to me to approach the topic of Filius' dueling stage, and learned that Filius had already been discussing the idea and soliciting their help, should I sign off on the proposal. I do love it when my staff takes their own initiative.

Severus grumbled and Quirinus was doubtful over how much help he could provide, but I have preliminary agreements from all of them to help. Definitely a productive morning before dealing with obstinate bureaucracy.


	37. March 12th

Sunday, March 12th, 1989

Zachariah Darbie had a fairly bad cough at the staff meeting today. I really hope it is not the start of the effects of the Defense against the Dark Arts curse; I had high hopes of actually being able to keep Zachariah for more than one year; I have not forgotten that when I hired him and warned him about the situation, he told me that "as a former curse-breaker, one of the foremost in the field, if there really is a curse on this position I will be able to find and remove it."

He's not the first curse breaker I've hired to try and break the curse, not even the first to take the DADA position, but his specialty is esoteric curses and Zachariah might be older than I am, but so is Gilda Marchbanks and that has not slowed her down any. He still has the reputation of best in his field. He mentioned going to talk to Poppy after the staff meeting; I hope she clears the cough up quickly.


	38. March 14th

Tuesday, March 14th, 1989

These last two days have been more exhausting than any since the fall of Voldemort and this time I had neither the elation of the war's end nor the mourning of the loss of so many brilliant minds, nor even the shock of the betrayal to keep me going as I had then when the ICW and the Ministry worked together to deal with the number of breaches to the Statute of Secrecy. Admittedly, back then, as an English Wizard and not yet the ICW's head, I had not been required to oversee everything personally either.

I became aware of an odd cosmic phenomenon on Sunday—Aurora mentioned her excitement about it at the Sunday Staff meeting when asked why she looked so exhausted. Turns out she had been staying up most of the day to study the oddly powerful effects of the recent solar flare while still staying up all night to teach her classes. I did not take much note of it beyond her promise to rest after mid-day Monday, after the effects had hit Earth. Maybe I should have—after all Aurora's a teacher, not a researcher, and if she was this interested, what more would the professional Astronomers be willing to do to study this? Turns out they could make some foolish moves.

I had gotten to sleep in on Monday—didn't get up until 6:30! (I miss the days of my youth when 6:30 was inconceivably early to wake up, rather than count as sleeping in.) I was leisurely drinking a cup of tea and starting my day's paperwork when one of the ICW's messengers activated and rushed through the floo.

Turns out, not all wizarding astronomers were as content to watch the effects of the solar flare hitting Earth from a distance as Aurora Sinistra. The community of professional Astronomers managed to determine that the effects of the solar flare would first and most directly hit one area in Canada. This resulted in the National Society of Wizarding Astronomers of Canada to offer to host a viewing for the study of the event and even with little notice Wizarding Astronomers from nearly every country in the world made their way there; certainly every major astronomy society in the America's had a representative at the meeting.

Someone there had the brilliant idea to record and magnify the effects so that the exact details would be easier to study. This apparently was widely accepted as a wise idea. Some smaller group that did not seem to realize that their spells might interfere with the spells of the first group, which contained the majority of the witches and wizards in attendance, decided to see if they could slow the effects for easier study. There were also a number of wizards working on long distance sensor arrays for measuring the effects or for communication to other locals to allow immediate communication of how the effects differ across the globe.

Divination does not work without at least a small portion of the Sight and Arithmancy does not actually predict the future, but surely someone could have looked at all the spells planned to be activated simultaneously, factored in the location and distance from the muggle power generators and realized that it was all a bad idea?

They did manage to get most of the spells planned off, and a number of recordings were not actually ruined by the spell rebounds and the following cascading failures, but they also managed to break the muggle electricity—web? Grid? I do not remember—for the province of Quebec, Canada in the process.

We are extremely lucky that Muggle Astronomers were also monitoring the skies and understood this type of solar action could have effects on their means of power. And it's a good thing that 12 years ago the wiser heads in the ICW pushed for and succeeded in getting the funding to keep a small number of muggleborns constantly training and up to date in using and fooling the latest muggle technological advancement. Without them, no matter how many Obliviators Canada supplied, it would have gotten out that the impact of the solar storm or whatever the astronomers are calling it, I am tired enough from being up 42 hours straight that with the latest pepper-up potion finally wearing off I can no longer fully think straight and remember. Anyway, that the impact of the solar phenomenon and the power outage did not happen at the same moment, and the failures were not in the right locations for them to have been immediate cause and effect.

But, the funding went through; they were able to change it. The Obliviators and the ICW guards were able to keep the muggle fixers of energy, whatever they are called, out of the stations until the damage was no longer clearly unnatural in nature and instead looked like it came from the fail-safe's and safeties from the plant being overwhelmed.

Then we had the people calling for sanctions on the Canadian Society of Magical Beings—as Canada's wizarding government calls itself—which was all complicated by the number of non-native astronomers visiting and the presence of multinational or just other countries national astronomy societies being present.

Others got to come and go as they felt they should or as the time zone they typically lived in dictated. Terezina, as Under Wugwump, and I had to stay the whole time. I was only able to call a recession now because the immediate concerns are all dealt with and four hours ago the ICW guards with the Canadian Obliviators finished their preliminary report to our august body upon finally leaving the Canadian muggle territory.

Of course upon calling the break, while I managed to assist Terezina in making her rather quick escape (it took her 45 minutes to get to the apparition point—I don't think she dared risk the longer distance to the international floo;) I was still waylaid for another two and a half hours. Mainly by people who did not think that their position should have been necessary for this process for as long as it was on such short notice. Right. And I had urgent –spell-will-not-stop-shrieking-until-you-start-to-respond-and-will-resume-the-noise-if-response-is-paused messages from both Minerva and Bartemius Crouch to deal with when I returned.

I have abused Pepper-up far more than I should today, Poppy will probably lecture me tomorrow if she can get to me before I have to return to the ICW.

Oh, good, the effects have died down to the point that I will be able to lay down now.


	39. March 15th

Wednesday, March 15th, 1989

Merlin and Morgana damn international politics.


	40. March 16th

Thursday, March 16th, 1989

There is an international crisis going on, one that is taking all of my considerable negotiating talents to keep everyone on track, rather than just blindly yelling at each other. Yet, now it is a personal insult to Edmund Macmillan and Walter Selwyn that I am five minutes late to a Wizengamot Committee meeting. My "wasting our valuable time" to "nearly not even appear at a meeting you called" was a "highly irresponsible bit of tomfoolery."

And, due to this lecture in propriety over which "the Chief Warlock should already take into account, as he represents our great nation to the world" taking the next quarter hour, and their obstructive grumbling throughout the meeting, I was ten minutes late getting back to my Under Mugwump and missed lunch. Terezinha can be a saint—she was surreptitiously eating her's while speaking to a Russian delegation when I arrived, and she handed it over wordlessly when she heard my stomach rumble.

Of course, it only took her five minutes after that to brief me on what I had missed and high tail it back to Brazil to catch up on her sleep…


	41. March 17th

Friday, March 17th, 1989

If nothing else can be said for the week, it can be said that it is good that it is over.

With all the other national organizations involved, and with the government not having been involved, Canada itself is getting away with a slap on the wrist and a small fine. The Canadian Astronomy Organization is paying all the Obliviators and ICW guards' salaries for the time it took to fix it.

There are not going to be any trade embargos. No one remembers whose idea it originally was, and there was no one person precisely in charge of organizing the failed spells to jail. Everyone whose wands have spells that show they were involved has community service hours to perform.

There is going to be a continued inquiry next week, but at least I have tomorrow off—instead of dealing with international headaches, I get to deal with Wizengamot nonsense instead. At least the school has been no crazier than normal; the portraits or a house elf are able to greet me with everything important that happened while I was gone and Minerva kept everything not absolutely critical from my desk. Wonderful.

And, to top it all off, some of our Northern Irish students decided to go all out for the Holiday today, and convinced some of their friends to join them. Admittedly, not all the students dressed in green and festooned in shamrocks seemed entirely happy about their apparel, but it has certainly livened up the meals and everyone who came to my tutoring session had at least one clover on their robes somewhere. Considering the differences in levels of decoration between houses and years, and even times of the day, I think this is the action of a number of different pranksters and good spirited friends joining in the holiday hype rather than some actual coordinated prank. A great way to end a school week.


	42. March 18th

Saturday March 18th, 1989

It has been six years since someone brought up that damned werewolf registration bill, and I thought it had been killed for good. I do not appreciate half of today's session being on that topic.

At least, considering the rate the Wizengamot normally moves on these things, Lalia Claymore will have graduated before any progress on the bill actually happens. For all that she was bitten two years ago, Pomona assures me her Badger has been able to adjust her plans, and has a job lined up that will keep her around even if her curse becomes public knowledge.

Severus will probably actually be disappointed when Lalia graduates this June—as much as he has grumbled about doing extra work for a Badger, he has clearly enjoyed having the excuse to make challenging potions this often; there have been more innovations and potions publications from him in the past two years than published in all the rest of his life before then.


	43. March 19th

Sunday March 19th, 1989

Today ended up being one of the easiest days I have had all week—it was spent meeting with the heads of different governments personally assuring them we were not holding them or their astronomical societies any more responsible for the incident than had already been laid out by the agreements finished Friday.

Of course, nearly every meeting then devolved into whatever other issue they wanted brought up at the next ICW meeting. Tomorrow is packed with more of the same. Such great joy. Minerva is going to kill me for how little I have been at Hogwarts this past week.


	44. March 20th

Monday, March 20th, 1989

I truly hope whoever takes over after Bagnold is someone equally sensible. My morning meeting with her could have been finished within ten minutes. She bluntly stated her concerns, and took my answers for what they were rather than dancing around topics and forcing me to do the same. But Bagnold also took one look at me when I stepped into her office and ordered her secretary to get scones to go along with the tea she already had in her office.

After addressing the reasons for the meeting, we spent the rest of the scheduled time discussing the best patisseries we have ever visited. I regret that we had clashed so much in the political arena that we will never truly be able to set it aside. She would have been a wonderful drinking companion—she has less patience for nonsense than Severus does combined with a great sense of humor. Alas.

After my lunch meeting in Egypt, I received Terezinha's message from after her breakfast meeting with Canada's Minister of Magic and the Canadian Muggle Prime Minister, which apparently ended up joined by the Governor General of Canada. The two muggles were less than pleased when they learned the true extent of the magical involvement in the power issues plaguing their country, rather than just the hurried messages they had originally been sent. Terezinha's presence helped keep the peace there, along with her clear disapproval of the fact they had not been fully briefed on the situation. I am glad she has it handled, and that I do not need to be involved.


	45. March 21st

Tuesday, March 21st, 1989

Today was a mess. It started well—I had to wake up early, because the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest wished for a meeting at some point when they could still read the stars for this day during the conversation, but that is not an unusual request for a meeting with the herd, and they had arranged this through Hagrid two weeks ago. I pulled out the memory for my pensive, and watched it again as I had breakfast in my office—we managed to deal with the concerns that where the purpose of the meeting, but there were mentions of giants spiders that seemed off. I need to look into it as soon as I have time.

Before breakfast also included a meeting with Minerva about everything going on in Hogwarts while I've been away. After breakfast came meetings with Sybil, Poppy and Irma. I must remember that I authorized the large bulk order of basic potions supplies and increased potions plants for the greenhouse for Poppy to requisition to make and increase her on-hand potion supply. I also need to request Severus' assistance for her over Easter Break if he has free time, as the potions stock has been unusually depleted this year.

My meeting with Terezinha after my late lunch/her very early breakfast about getting the ICW back towards a normal schedule seemed to be going well, until we were interrupted by an "emergency Wizengamot matter"—something that was neither an emergency nor needed even the attention of the deputy warlock, much less the chief warlock-and the rest of the day was a constant stream of interruptions until I just sent Terezinha back to Brazil without a full plan and even then the disruptions did not stop until I called Mitzy half an hour ago and asked that she and her fellow house elves keep people away until I wake up in the morning.

Going into tomorrow's ICW meeting without a plan could be a recipe for disaster.


	46. March 22nd

Wednesday March 22nd, 1989

Right, not a complete disaster, and the issues that came up were mostly not even the ICW or any astronomer's fault. Terezinha was brilliant as usual; apparently she came up with a plan sometime after I went to sleep last night. It was on my desk when I woke this morning.

If Under Mugwump Terezinha Moreno had not managed to make enemies through her anti-western European prejudices to the point where between that and her clear interest in the changing muggle government of her country, she would have no chance in winning a bid to be Supreme Mugwump, I would resign today. Alas that taking interest in the other ruling faction of a country and a prejudice she is too professional to allow to effect her final judgments on a bill could so damage a political career!

Anyway, less than half way through the meeting, only twenty minutes until our first break, an English wizard rushed in. He did try to be quiet and courteous, I will give him that, but anyone hurrying into an ICW meeting and making his or her way straight to the Supreme Mugwump right after a time of crisis, ignoring both the Under Mugwump and the current speaker, and then, worse, speaking to the Supreme Mugwump as soon as he reached me, while I was listening to the speaker, is bound to get most people's attention. He managed to make me miss some of the Russian delegate's points, and miss my cue—Terezinha had to grab my attention for me to realize that everyone was waiting for me to call the thanks after the closing of his statement and ask if any had an immediate response.

While I am not pleased with the news that Edward Nott has gained a definite nomination for Minister of Magic, it was definitely neither an emergency nor important enough to warrant an interruption, especially when we were breaking soon anyway. I had ICW members coming up to me every break thereafter and after closing either trying to pry into the news or expressing their condolences for whomever must have died that was so personally important that the message could not wait at all. And that English Wizard expected me to leave the ICW meeting immediately upon learning his news and head for the ministry, as acknowledging each nomination is one of the Chief Warlock's duties. Despite the fact there is no time limit on that rule, he spent almost an hour trying to get me to go immediately.

Sometimes the arrogance of my fellow English and European magic users makes me completely understand Terezinha's opinions.


	47. March 23rd

Thursday, March 23rd, 1989

I'm behind on my Hogwarts paperwork's again. My week's schedule originally called for using today to eradicate the Hogwarts paperwork, and, if I managed that, to catch up on the Wizengamot paperwork in similar fashion, but with the need to acknowledge the Minister of Magic Nomination in person, staying in my office all day would reflect badly. I still spent the morning on Hogwarts matters, mainly cleaning up and finishing the paperwork from Tuesday's many meetings while they are still relatively fresh in mind (despite that, I still needed to break out the pensive and this journal for some of it). I finished the second round of paperwork for the potions supplies and had a quick meeting with Severus between his classes. When I mentioned that I was about to head to the Ministry as soon as we finished talking, he went to his personal supply cabinet, and wordlessly handed over a potion that was labeled as a mind sharpener, but if I remember correctly also relieves headaches. He just glared at me and changed the topic when I tried to ask.

Unfortunately, Nott was there when I reached the Ministry. He expressed surprise, but when he met my eyes I let out my most passive Legilimency spell and, as he has no Occlumency shields to speak of, I could tell his true opinion. The acknowledgement of Nomination for Minister is fairly simple and quick if the Nominee is not present. If the Nominee is in attendance it takes quite a bit more time and a larger ceremony—Nott had been hanging around specifically to force me into the longer ceremony, both to force me waste my time while acting happy about doing so, and for the attention it would bring to his nomination, some free good press to start the campaign. I ended up doing Wizengamot work for the rest of the day.


	48. March 24th

Friday, March 24th, 1989

If it's not one thing, then it's another. Since yesterday I spent the morning doing Hogwarts work and the afternoon at the Ministry and the Wizengamot, today the plan was to spend the entire time at Hogwarts, most of it in my tutoring classroom as today is the student's last day before the start of Easter Break; the students who are leaving for the break head to the Hogwarts Express—and Platform 9 ¾! —this afternoon. I try to always be free the entire day before Easter Break; a fair number of students, even ones who do not show up any of the rest of the year will show up today either for advice on where to start working with the amount the professors assign over break, which books they need if they are leaving or even what they should focus their studying on for the upcoming final exams.

But not today. Today, right after leaving my office to join breakfast in the Great Hall, when I have only gotten half way down the hallway, my gargoyle guard slid over, and out from the stairway came sprinting one of the ICW's intern-messengers. My office's floo is the only floo in Hogwarts—and one of only three in Britain—attached to the ICW's international floo network, but I really wish messengers could not get into my office when I'm not there. I ended up asking one of the nearby portraits to tell Minerva and going to the ICW rather than breakfast.

It turns out that last night a muggle ship ran into a reef in the Northern Pacific and was spilling its contents into the ocean. Originally, this would seem like a purely muggle issue, except they ran into the reef because of the recent expansion of a group of muggle repelling charms, and the charms were hindering the muggle clean-up and rescue efforts. This would still seem like a job for the Canadian, American, or maybe even Russian Ministries rather than the ICW except for this: the muggle repealing charms surround the largest saltwater refuge for magical creatures on the planet. It is tended by the merfolk and had just expanded to include a sanctuary for injured Selkies. I am assured that the largest Northern Saltwater Mer city is less than a full day's swim by strong ocean current away from the boat's resting place also.

We magicals have no need for this oil—I was not even sure what the problem was when the messenger first tried to explain—so explanations were needed when the Magicical Congress of the United States wished for the ICW's permission to move highly restricted creatures across international waters and out of the danger zone until spells were set up to deal with the issue or the muggles finished their cleanup. They also asked for any knowledge or assistance that the ICW could order or offer to deal with the oil. Luckily this was something I could delegate and knew who to delegate to, so I was back to Hogwarts by lunch, and able to offer a few hours of help before watching half the school population depart. Now if only I could go on Easter Break too…

I wonder how many years it's been since I had a vacation?


	49. March 25th

A/N:Poll Question:Would it be better to post things UnBeta-ed on the proper day, or miss a day and do a double post the next with the edits?

* * *

Saturday, March 25th, 1989

The Werewolf Bill dies again today, and we may have seen the end of it completely this time. Madam Longbottom, Lord Selwyn and Griselda Marchbanks ended up making a formidable and unexpected alliance with this. With them, they brought allies from all sides of the political spectrum and guilt inducing abilities of having graded nearly everyone in the courtroom when they were just entering adult like (that glare still works on me, at least). When, at the announcement of the bill re-opening for discussion, Lord Selwyn stood up and declared the bill was being killed now, and the two ladies spoke up to second it…

Sometimes I am proud to be part of this august body.

It seems some of the celebratory pranks from last week went untriggered. We had two very angry formerly seventh year Gryffindor leprechauns at breakfast today, swearing vengeance on a roommate that went home for the break. I am sure it was in solidarity with them, not just house pride, which resulted in all the professors at dinner wearing green robes from the moment we stepped into the Great Hall.


	50. March 26th

Sunday, March 26th, 1989

Today's staff meeting was the most relaxed one we have had since the start of Christmas Break. This one week break from teaching does not mean any of the professors have less work to do—no matter how hard you work at it, by this point of the year, a Hogwarts professor is behind on their grading. Not to mention meetings for tutoring sessions or going over essays, especially for sixth year, OWL, and NEWT students, helping panicking NEWT students worrying over their future career or needing help with applications for internships. And this break, just when students feel they need the break most, also results in ridiculous rule breaking in attempts to de-stress, so, despite having half the school population, we need to be twice as vigilant. Now this is starting to sound like more work than normal, not less!

All the prefects are staying this year, along with our Head Girl (Ms. Gonzalez had not been a Prefect,) so we have 25 students here to help deal with any troublemakers for the break, when they are not studying themselves. I do not remember the last time all of them stayed—it must have been at least ten years ago.

Zachariah's cough is back. Poppy got rid of it for a while, but it does not look like whatever she did stayed working… or our DADA professor caught something else already. It's not affecting his ability to teach, so I'm not worried on that front, but he has not found the location of the curse yet; he's been too busy teaching. He had said that he had an idea at the end of Christmas Break, and plans to use Easter Break to pursue it. He's off the rosters for patrols for this.

Minerva and Severus have a bet going on which house will lose the most points over break. It will be interesting to see if they keep to their terms no matter which of them loses.


	51. March 27th

Monday, March 27th, 1989

Apparently the Sorting Hat allowed the portraits to think they had won the argument a few weeks ago about using pranking types for the start of the year song, and then went on and created the song with that basis anyway. He sang it today, right after I finished my very-important-and-urgent stack of paperwork and was moving onto the very-important-somewhat-urgent stack. It is actually a rather good one, managing to compliment and subtly insult each house, and, of course, the Headmasters were all in an uproar. With so many, and them all moving about, it is no wonder that I did not notice Dame Phyllida Spore leaving.

I had actually move on to my less –important-still-very-urgent paperwork and completely lost track of the still continuing argument, when Dame Phyllida returned with a companion. Until that moment I had been unaware Hogwarts contained the woken portrait of any of the Founders, and, apparently, most of the others that frequent my office's walls were under the same misconception. So, to say Helga Hufflepuff's scolding of the Hat came as a shock would be understating the fact.

She did not stay long; she was in Dame Phyllida's frame while the Sorting Hat performed the song in its current form and while scolding the Hat for adding insults about the Houses to the song—apparently not the firm ally against the frivolity the Dame was hoping for. Then, she appeared in the oldest portraits for a few moments, speaking to the first and second Heads, before leaving.

The argument was practically dropped the moment she left, with the portraits instead converging on Dame Phyllida or the oldest Heads, demanding how the Dame had known Helga Hufflepuff, where she was hung, and if any of the other Founders had moving pictures around. With the practice and patience only found in the best of teachers and a Lady of her nobility, Dame Phyllida ignored both them and my questions (I think the first few Heads actually left, since I have not seen them since Helga left).

The Sorting Hat is recreating next year's song.


	52. March 28th

Tuesday, March 28th, 1989

Minerva looks to be currently winning the bet.

Fawkes has finally decided to hold his Burning Day, and, apparently, I am in good enough graces that he chose to use his dish, rather than my sock drawer. It was good timing—he was starting to look like he needed it, and I had no problem being around today when he wanted assistance.

Fawkes is a beloved companion, but he is also very independent. I love these few days he allows my assistance.


	53. March 29th

Wednesday, March 29th, 1989

Scratch my first line yesterday—after that stunt from the Gryffindors, Severus is currently winning the bet. The Greenhouse roof only required a few quick reparos but Pomona says it will take over a week to heal the damage to her plants. Rolanda, on the other hand, is pleased with the loss of two of her brooms to stunt flying, as that means she can choose two new brooms to receive in April.

With today's ICW meeting taking only the allotted time and a quick escape once the meeting ended, I reached Hogwarts in time to assist with the last spells and warding for Filius' dueling chambers.

For a thorough testing, Filius badgered me into going for a round with him in the ring. Our resident dueling champion won that one. While I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the next one quite a bit more- Filius had sent a message to Severus before the start of our match and when we finished, Filius convinced Severus and Minerva to "test the limits of the wards for a round—your styles are different from Albus' or mine, we need to know the wards can handle anything."

Pity Rolanda was not willing to take Wilhelmina's offer up for the next duel afterwards. It could have started up quite an interesting little teacher's tournament.


	54. March 30th

Thursday March 30th, 1989

It seems we finally know what the Hogwarts pranksters have been up to these past few weeks. They had noticed how stressed I've been recently and decided to do something about it. Quirinus said that they just want to be able to say they pulled one over the Headmaster, but the bumblebees now gracing my robes seem to be specifically energetic when they find patterns to buzz around in that make me smile.

I'd love to know what spells Ms. Page, Mr. Higgs and Ms. Selwyn used today. Starting around when Ms. Selwyn left breakfast, my plain robes became a habitat for an energetic hive of bumblebees—they rather like both the sunflowers on my sleeves and the few flowered plants that started to spring up around me every time I stood still long enough—about 8 minutes; I can tell Ms. Page remembered our conversation about favorite scents in the greenhouses that we had when she came to a tutoring session three months ago. Once the plants showed up—real ones—the bees—still illusionary—seemed to fly off the robes over to collect nectar from them and back. If I left the room before they were all back, I had a small swarm of illusionary bees following me, trying to get back to their hive.

The majority of the spells wore off after dinner, but my robe remained a cloudy blue sky with sunflowers and the beehive, though the bees no longer moved.

I've decided to keep the robe, though I de-enchanted my hat, so it no longer looks like the sun, and moved the clouds around a bit so they no longer seem to all come from my beard. I've also cast a permanent reanimation charm on the bees, though they no longer will be leaving the robes, since I cannot figure out how they did so in the first place.

I wonder if I could get away with wearing these robes to Ms. Selwyn and Mr. Higgs graduation next year…


	55. March 31st

Friday, March 31st, 1989

I adore the chance to tutor students. They come at things with the most interesting perspectives, some with their minds open to learning, some whose minds need to be pried open to see new ideas and even the point of what they already know. Some leave here to become monsters, some become near saints. All of them, all of them have an impact, no matter how unimportant they—or their classmates—judge themselves to be. The debates we get into in classroom E-13 sometimes makes me long to be back in front of a class for more than the occasional emergency substitute teacher.

The combination of ideas that show up! A 6th year Hufflepuff has gotten permission and assistance from Severus to do a series of experiments on the effects of the moon cycle and planet placements on the potency and time needed to create a particularly perspicuity healing potion; a Slytherin 7th year, upon hearing about it asked to be included not on the brewing side, but on the thorough analysis of the effects, as learning under Poppy how to make that analysis to such minute detail now will put him in good stead in his healer's internship upon graduation. Both the brewing and analysis should end up being in depth enough that they will be able to publish the work.

One of Sybil's comments has a 5th year Hufflepuff in an uproar about her charms grade—but once it was repeated, it was easy enough to for someone with as many years interpreting her statements as I to realize that Ms. Merryweather will be dropping charms after her OWLs—because the History of Magic and Ancient Runes combination project she just began will become her passion and lead her to be the top of her field there rather than as the household charms creator, which is the current direction she plans to lead her life.

A sixth year Ravenclaw popped in to check that I will be here next Friday on behalf of another Ravenclaw that went home for Easter Break, who has a project combining History of Magic and Muggle Studies she wants to consult me on.

It makes me want to mold these minds directly again!

And then I have to see someone's notes or essays for critic, and I'm reminded how glad I was to stop needing to read or grade parchment that I could not use enlargement or neaten handwriting charms on without risking it seeming like I was deliberately changing the length of a student's essay.

Nor do I have to daily try to figure out what logic lead to answers placed on tests or quizzes, I can ask directly. I never could figure out some of those…


	56. April 1st

Saturday April 1st, 1989

I will always love it when April Fool's Day takes place on a day when classes are not being taught—having it happen during a break is even more of a bonus as more thought out and well done pranks are pulled off, rather than just juvenile tripping spells and the like.

I missed the big one from the Slytherin-Ravenclaw trio—that apparently came right before lunch, and somehow they got Peeves in on it; the Fat Friar actually was willing to listen when the Grey Lady, of all people, spoke up about banishing him for a time! Not that it will work forever. Hogwarts has too much accidental power build up not to have a poltergeist, after all.

Alas for the Wizengamot meetings that keep me from my school.

I did witness some good ones at breakfast today, and three Hufflepuffs have detention with Filch for managing to change all the breakfast dishes and the food on them to the corresponding House colors, even if it did only last for three minutes. Quite advanced for second years.

Both Sybil and Aurora were with us at dinner today—I cannot decide whether they were purposefully pranking us all, or whether this means I will have a centaur teaching about reading the future in the stars here sometime in the next seven years. Or maybe that there have been seven illegal animagi to graduate Hogwarts already able to change their form during my headship, with Aurora knowing three of them?

No, that last idea is too farfetched, the animagus transformation is too advanced to do as a school child without direct coaching.


	57. April 2nd

Sunday April 2nd, 1989

Today I had a meeting with two different ICW committees—Fawkes had to peck me to get me up in time for the 2:30AM one, and then do so again when I forgot to set the alarm for my nap after that first meeting so that I could reach the Board of Governors meeting today.

Mitzy came back slightly worried from the first Sunday bi-monthly check on Harry Potter I've asked of the house elves since I got too busy to check on him myself. Apparently, there might have been something wrong with Harry's arm? It might have been broken? Unfortunately, she gave me the report right before I had to go to the second ICW meeting, and I had to rush from that to make the weekly staff meeting—I actually forgot about it until I started writing this now, reflecting back on the day and it is far to late too go and check now; the family would all be asleep by this point, as I should be. Since it's the first time the house elves have expressed concern, I'll go and check this personally. Maybe before classes start tomorrow? But I should be at breakfast tomorrow, since I missed the first meal after the students returned…

I'll figure it out in the morning.


	58. April 3rd

Monday, April 3rd, 1989

Thank goodness for Fawkes. I know my alarm spell went off this morning, I remember grabbing the wire to turn it off, but I promptly fell back asleep. For all that Fawkes is always urging me to get more rest, he only let me sleep in for 5 minutes before he started pecking at me to wake up, while singing the most discordant song I have ever heard. I had just enough time before breakfast to grab a broom, fly out past the wards, and apparate to Private Drive. I was contemplating taking down my Disillusionment spell and knocking, despite the disruption that would cause on a school day, when the door opened and disgorged two boys. Young Harry is easily recognizable and he was first, raising both hands to his ears and waggling them in universal childhood taunting as soon as the front door closed, then running off as his cousin tried to give chase. I wonder if there is anything medically wrong with him, he was severely overweight.

Anyway, there was clearly nothing wrong with Harry's arm, so I headed back to school and made it in time for breakfast. I sent Arabella an owl asking if anything seemed wrong after the meal anyway. I'm sure I will hear in the morning.

I spent most of the past week dedicated to ICW or Wizengamot work, and have mostly caught that back up, so today I dedicated myself to the Hogwarts paperwork I have been putting off to work on the others—luckily, vacation weeks generate less new paperwork than most school year weeks. I was able to finish most of it before dinner ended, so I was able to reach the Great Hall in time to eat something, then accept when Filius challenged me to a relaxing game of checkers afterwards.

I lost. Twice.


	59. April 4th

Tuesday, April 4th, 1989

Who, exactly, thought it was a good plan to use the illegal transport of a Nundu nest to Equator fiasco that happened last year as an example of why to lighten the restrictions on current trading bans while talking to my Under Mugwump? I barely got another useful word out of her ranting during our weekly meeting.

Aurora came down to dinner today, with proof of her winning three of the staff betting pool bets, proof Argus won another, and her pointed comments started seven more—I had 8 knuts on Ms. Baker of Hufflepuff making a move on Mr. Gladscoun of Slytherin first, rather than the other way around. Aurora informed Severus something about star configurations for his current potions project, and then got sucked into an Ancient Runes debate with Bathsheda. There are some interesting ideas bandied about that table; if my interest in Ancient Runes had actually survived the NEWT courses, I would be itching to research and experiment right now.

Arabella wrote back—apparently Harry and his cousin got into some sort of scuffle yesterday, and Harry left favoring his arm, but she says it was nothing too unusual for them, and of the two of them, Harry is clearly the healthier one, so I won't worry about it.


	60. April 5th

Wednesday, April 5th, 1989

Clearly, the answer to my question yesterday was the representative from Columbia. That, or someone used that example with him, and he decided Nundu transportation was a good example for his speech today… Equator and Columbia are right next to one another; did he somehow forget what actually happened there? Really, even if all the other trade restrictions at an international level were dropped, the ones about the transportation of Nundus would not be.

Severus spent most of dinner advising Minerva about appropriate apparel—as Minerva lost the Easter Bet, she will need to come to the Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff Quidditch game dresses completely in Slytherin colors, in clear support of his house's team, and "you only have a month to get your outfit together and color changing charms, your green clan tartan, or timed transformations are against your own rules." I heard Zachariah laughing a couple times at their comments, and while I managed to keep control of myself, I quite agree, it was a rather amusing conversation to overhear.


	61. April 6th

Thursday, April 6th, 1989

My day was interrupted by the second nomination and confirmation of nomination for Minister of Magic—this time for Cuthbert Mockridge. While I approve of the majority of his politics, and he is one of the best diplomats I have ever had the pleasure to meet, I do not think he has much chance. He has been the head of the Goblin Liaison Office for too long for people to not associate him with them and be suspicious of his motivations.

Despite the interruption, I did manage to finish most of my plans for the day. Fortunately for Minerva, I caught up with the Hogwarts paperwork and, even with an emergency or another surprise Wizengamot meeting, I will be at least a week before I might need to leave any of my work to her. She was happy to hear that.


	62. April 7th

Friday, April 7th, 1989

The tutoring session ended up running long today—it had to, otherwise more than three quarters of it would have been designated to one student. Maura MacShìm was at Classroom E-13 before I arrived today, and had so many questions that, after the first half-hour, I ended up asking her if she would mind waiting until the end and I would let her interview me then. Luckily she agreed.

Miss MacShìm is the Ravenclaw that asked a friend last week to verify that I would be available. I am unsure how she gained Binns' agreement, but she came up with an idea for a joint essay for Muggle Studies and History of Magic in lieu of the normal 6th year History of Magic NEWT essay and end of year Muggle Studies project. Considering the topic, Quirinus probably agreed just because he would be interested in what she would come up with.

The essay compares and contrasts the ICW and the Muggle United Nations, the two main international governing bodies of both of our people. It will need to cover large variety of topics: their origins, their power, how they function—both how they use their power and how they are set up—the purposes of the organizations, and even down to how and when the groups meet.

As the current head of the ICW, I was an invaluable resource and I even learned some things about the UN based on her questions. One of the most obvious differences stems from the fact we can teleport to wherever we need to go instantly. The representatives from the UN, for example, all need to move to New York City in the United States of America for multiple months at a time, while we can all return to our respective countries each night, thus we have an easier time consulting in person the leaders of our nations and our people. Their main General Assembly session starts in September, takes a break in December, and continues in January. Our conferences start 2 days after the June solstice, summer solstice for us in the northern hemisphere, and lasts for 2 months. We have larger general meetings that are not part of our conferences, like what I go to every Wednesday, while, if I understand correctly, their meetings outside of the General Assembly are mostly found within Counsels.

The ICW seems to have more power than our muggle counterpart—but we have more to worry about, since we are trying to keep our community secret.

This paper will definitely require enough writing and research to deserve grades in two classes.


	63. April 8th

Saturday, April 8th, 1989

Brandon's Law for Libel and Slander Reforms has unfortunately completely died for this year. I had held hope for this reform, since it had not been killed the past two times, just sent for revisions and each time had more support than it had originally. I don't know whether it is bribery or just a really persuasive speaker, but today the vast majority of the Wizengamot dismissed the Law.

Irma came to dinner today, apparently more for the chance to speak to me than to socialize with the rest of the staff. With the alchemy club's current composition, Irma predicts we will have sufficient demand for an alchemy class next year, and possibly even the year after that. I'll need to go to the Board to Petition for the funds to hire another professor, though this one, at least, will be part time.

I appreciate the alert before we have a list of students who added it to their schedule at the end of the year—I have time to figure out how to present the issue now, so hopefully it will not take weeks for approval just for the funds to advertise the position the way it did last time.


	64. April 9th

Sunday, April 9th, 1989

I have to wonder how long the floor of the left hand third floor corridor has been transfigured into an ice rink. We only found out now since Argus decided to change up his patrol route last night to include it; the students somehow convinced the ghosts to keep quiet about it and none of the classrooms off that hallway have been used in years. It cannot have been there for more than a month, since Argus says he last checked the corridor about a month ago.

I would like to think it was there for less than a week—one of the secret passageways near the Ancient Runes classroom comes out on that hallway and I know Bathsheda occasionally uses the passage. Bathsheda would have noticed if the ice had been there for a week, but she's been almost suspiciously quiet since Argus brought it up at the staff meeting. Minerva was curious about the spell work and volunteered to take the rink down. She sent a message to my office once she had finished—apparently there were 17 students skating in the hallway when she got there.


	65. April 10th

Monday, April 10th, 1989

I went right after lunch to what should have been a "quick" meeting in the Ministry today about the next Wizengamot session. Madame Longbottom delivered one of the best dressings downs that I have ever been privileged to witness when Mr. Obara's vacillation resulted in the meeting lasting through to the evening.

There was an Alchemy club meeting tonight. I originally planned to just walk in and see if I could offer any help before they started, but, as I only returned to Hogwarts after their meeting began and not wanting to interrupt if they were working on anything practical, I disillusioned myself before looking into their room. I do not think I have ever seen Irma so happy around students, nor students so pleased with her attention.

In the end, I watched the meeting for maybe 20 minutes, but did not remove the charm. The club is definitely turning out well.


	66. April 11th

Tuesday, April 11th, 1989

I enjoyed my stint watching the Alchemy club enough that, when I unexpectedly gained some free time this morning, I decided to do a similar thing again. I choose to stalk Quirinus' lesson at the time, as, of all the classes offered in that time slot, 6th year Muggle Studies is the one most likely to be going over a topic I do not already know—muggles change things so quickly!

It seems my favorite bit of Men's Muggle Fashion is starting to go out of style. But even muggles know that old people like me are eccentric and tend to stick to what we like regardless of the current fashion, so a purple suit should not stand out so badly. Based on what Quirinus said, I will modify the transfiguration I use for the shirt and tie, however.


	67. April 12th

A/N: I accidentally put the non-beta-ed version of this chapter up originally. Sorry and fixed!

Wednesday, April 12th, 1989

Based off of the events of almost a month ago today, the Chief of the International Unspeakables placed a request for an increase in funding for the Muggle Technology Research Branch, specifically the portion of it that assists the Obliviators. (We may need to also look into officially making the Muggle Technology Division a portion of the International Law Enforcement rather than a division of the Unspeakables). The Bill including the increase in funding was presented today, and turned into a fierce debate.

The Bill actually covered changing the funding on a number of issues, increasing in some things and of course decreasing in others. It only came about this quickly due to the influence of the Unspeakables, however. It was a good choice of bills to sneak this into, there are enough causes in the bill that not even the most bigoted of the politicians would vote no without taking the other issues into account. The debate took more of the day than I expected, but also barely focused on this portion of it. I am happy to say it passed.


	68. April 13th

Thursday April 13th, 1989

While I fully understand the wish to strangle a student occasionally, I really do wish that Severus would not take it out on students sensitive to verbal assaults.

Severus is a genius with a nearly instinctive understanding for the basics of potions, thus has a lot of trouble explaining the basics. He's read a number of beginner's potions books just to try to know the things beginning students may have to be taught, but he just cannot comprehend how you do not get these things after one try or explanation. He's brilliant with teaching more advanced work—it's why those who do take his NEWT classes end up with EE or Os on the test, and England has some of the most advanced potioneers in the world. I've tried to change things so that he only teaches NEWT classes, while also making all the potions needed for the Hospital wing, herbology and other classes (thus significantly cutting our expense budget on that front), with another teacher for younger years—or even Severus teaching OWL year and NEWT classes with another teacher getting the first four years. I managed to even work it out so it would not greatly increase Hogwarts budget—but the Board of Governors have turned down the proposal every time. They just look at the statistics—Severus is so far the _only_ potions professor in Hogwarts history that has never had a permanent physical injury occur during his class. He's one of only seven in the school's records that do not have at least one death on their watch (two of those were one year professors). No one manages to graduate fifth year in Hogwarts without basic proficiency in the more common of household potions—St. Mungo's has announced in its numbers a decrease in common potions accidents that are brought to them in the demographics that are of the ages of his students after graduation. A good record in Snape's class opens doors to apprenticeships even outside of the United Kingdom.

…The Board may have a point that if we do this for one core subject, people will demand we do this for all the core subjects and we do not currently have the budget for that many new teachers…

They see these things and refuse to change the situation. They are not the ones needing to deal with crying Ravenclaws in a first year class that never actually combines ingredients that can react in deadly fashion if mishandled where a less alert or strict teacher would not be an insane detriment.

Two Ravenclaws crying to me today. Two!


	69. April 14th

Friday April 14th, 1989

It has been quite some time since a member of the staff has used the actual forms and official route to get permission to spend time in the Forbidden Forest, let alone two. Hagrid goes in there all the time, since that is where the thestral herd lives, and Pomona and Severus take trips into the woods often enough that, as long as they mention it to at least one staff member and are back from their plant gathering/ingredient collecting within a couple of hours, no one gives special notice. But Zachariah and Quirinus have filed the forms for a joint Forest trip.

They'll be headed into the Forest tonight, and should be back Sunday night—we will have a brief staff meeting Monday before classes to catch them up on what they missed at Sunday's meeting. The plan is to catch a couple of the more common dangerous ones for Zachariah's third year classes.

It's nice to see Quirinus going with him. Quirinus is a quiet and rather shy young man—younger even than Severus, and his retiring nature has kept him from connecting well when he is not teaching. He has a passion for teaching; put him in front of a classroom and it is like he is a different man. I've snuck into his Muggle Studies Classes disillusioned three times—I have learned new things each time and the lessons were quite enjoyable. Zachariah took it as a challenge to coxe him from his shell, and it seems to have worked; I wonder if they've decided to make it official mentorship yet. It's been nice to see the sharp minded curious interest in defense that I remember from his student days appear again, rather than just limiting himself to the subject he knows best, Quirinus having grown up in a practically muggle half-blood household.

I think this weekend will do them well.


	70. April 15th

Saturday, April 15th, 1989

Anton Kapp, the current British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot, approached me after the meeting today. He went to Hogwarts once—I vaguely remember him from that time, a first year Hufflepuff so completely homesick that Pomona was extremely worried about him. He did not come back to Hogwarts for a second year.

That nervous, sad boy is a far cry from the confident young man who applied for the Youth Representative position two years ago and approached me today. He spent the intervening years going to a small floo-to day school, until he took the position with the Wizengamot, during which he has been home schooled with a few correspondence courses. That does not mean he is disconnected with his peers! I know he still owls his Hogwarts friends and came to see every Quidditch game before he had conflicts whom Wizengamot meetings.

Mr. Kapp will turn 17 in July, ageing out of the position. There is going to be a brief transition period before that—starting at the last Saturday meeting in June, his successor will shadow him for a week, then comes a Saturday when they are, in theory, equals, then a week where the successor leads and Mr. Kapp gives advice as needed and one last Wizengamot meeting.

The new Wizarding Youth Representative will be Lorenna Ayers, a brilliant 15-year-old Slytherin witch, who will turn 16 during her first month in office.

Anton Kapp has never spoken to his replacement, which turned out to be the reason he approached me. Mr. Kapp and Miss Ayers have already written one another, showing more courtesy and common sense than most people in politics do when they are replacing one another, but, as Mr. Kapp does not go to Hogwarts, he wished me to facilitate a meeting between the two of them.

It was fairly easy to do this evening. After returning from the Wizengamot, before sitting down for dinner, I spoke to Miss Ayers, confirming her interest. During dinner I spoke to Minerva, Severus, and Argus. Then, I just needed to write down the room reservation and send a message to both Mr. Kapp and Miss Ayers. I wonder what they will be talking about…


	71. April 16th

Sunday, April 16th, 1989

While long exposure to children as an educator and truthfully more childish behavior from politicians makes me want to say I understand children, I am sometimes still completely discombobulated by the ideas that Hogwarts students will decide to follow through on.

I can understand the timing—the Sunday evening staff meetings are not exactly a secret, but, between frantic last minute Homework and the fact that Sunday evenings are the only day and time that all portraits will immediately report potential wrongdoing to the staff, there are rarely issues.

Of course, that doesn't help when people are outside—so it's a good thing Peeves has made a habit of slipping out and coming back through the outside walls, or we might not have known before it was too late.

Why did two Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, AND a Slytherin decide that climbing up the outside of the Astronomy tower was a good idea? The fact that they thought enough about safety precautions to have one person flying stand by, yet only had _one_ person, that person being someone who according to Madam Hooch is not that good on a broom, makes this all worse. They thought enough to give a passing nod to the fact it was dangerous, but not enough to stop or take decent precautions…

We actually saw one of the Gryffindors lose his grip and start to fall too fast for the broom rider to manage to catch while we were out there trying to figure out a way to get them down without startling them. And, of course, one person falling startled another into losing their grip…

In the end we levitated them all down. They are all serving detentions for the rest of the year under a rotation of professors, changing when professors have detention ideas for them. (We will also use the rotation to keep from stealing away any one professor's student-free time.)

They are _not_ going to like it when it is my turn.


	72. April 17th

Monday April 17th, 1989

I do not think I have ever seen our Muggle Studies professor as happy as he is now. He was practically glowing when he and Zachariah came out of the Forbidden Forest today. He was doing the Quirrell equivalent of bubbling over dangerous magical creature facts at breakfast, with Silvanus' enthusiastic participation. (Zachariah was exhausted, and complained about how he could not take these long days and stake out traps anymore. They did succeed in capturing the needed creatures for DADA.)

Quirinus has a mastery in Muggle Studies, but I would not be surprised if a Defense Mastery joins it soon

The actions of our four idiots and their assistant have made its way around the Hogwarts rumor mill. The students in the houses with the wall climbers are partially shunning them for the point loss, probably as bad a punishment as the detentions at the moment.

Gryffindor is definitely out of the running for the House Cup with this stunt. Hufflepuff still has a chance, but it was slim even before this. Slytherin's been knocked out of the lead, which has angered the snakes far more than one of their own accepting a Lion's dare. Ravenclaw is currently in the lead and rather smug about not being involved. We are going to need to be vigilant about retaliation, both on the idiots and against the Ravenclaws.


	73. April 18th

Tuesday, April 18th, 1989

First of the major retaliations and their subsequent detentions. It has been a long time since I actively looked forward to spending the entire next day at the ICW headquarters.


	74. April 19th

Wednesday, April 19th, 1989

There is nothing like the childishness of adults to put the antics of children in their proper perspective. A witch from Argentina was clearly trying to pick a fight with a witch from Belgium today over the affections of the representative from Uganda. I am certain that it was just as clear to that shaman as it was to the rest of us that the only reason either of them were interested in the first place was the recently announced agreement with their muggle government to facilitate the increased export of the magical version of Euphorbia Stapfii which truly only gains its magical properties when grown under the hands of the tribal shamans. For all their value as potions ingredients, no non-native herbologist has ever managed to gain more magical potency from the plants than a muggle.

I'm also fairly certain that the representative from Romania is taking bribes. I just have not figured out from whom or why. I need to keep an eye on that wizard…

Really, after this, dealing with people who are as open about their feelings and motivations as students are will be rather relaxing. Definitely a refreshing feeling after my opinions on students last night.


	75. April 20th

Thursday, April 20th, 1989

Only four students were sent to my office today, unlike the 21 on Tuesday and the five after my ICW meeting yesterday. The first three were dragged to my office by an irate Argus; the two on one duel wreaked a corridor to the point it will likely take the house elves two nights in order to correct, and it is still not clear how it started.

The fourth student was a sixth year Ravenclaw, whose fifth year Hufflepuff boyfriend ended up caught in the crossfire of attacks and retaliations Tuesday, and felt the punishment meted out was not enough. I went lighter on the witch than I probably should, but I know the boy, and his fury at her for the unneeded sneak attack and her choice of spells after he had already forgiven his attackers will be worse than anything I could do.


	76. April 21st

Friday, April 21st, 1989

Maura MacShìm was at the tutoring session again today, with a mostly finished draft of her Muggle Studies/History of Magic paper, and a list of follow up questions that she either had not thought of originally or had not gotten sufficient information on last time. Luckily this was a far shorter list than last time, and I was able to help her during normal tutoring times, between assisting the three other students that showed up.

It felt odd to have so few students come, but I appreciated the chance for so much personal time with them. I especially appreciated the chance to meet a first year Slytherin by the name of Peregrine Derrick. Mr. Derrick does not look like much, large for his age, but quiet and rather shy, seeming like a natural follower when I have seen him around the school. But his silence hides a brilliant mind and some stunning amounts of ambition that makes it clear why he is in Salazar's noble house. He plans to one day study the effects of long turn curse exposure on the local flora and fauna at ancient tombs, temples, and the like, though he is leaving open the possibility of instead taking up curse breaking and archeology, magizoology in remote locations, or rare herbology instead. Since his chosen field will rely heavily on the understanding of Ancient Runes, which he will not learn here until third year, he has taken it up as a self study on the side and came to the session today to make sure he was translating a section from an Ancient Runes book correctly. He was—if he sticks with the self study, he will be far beyond third year runes by the time he can sign up for the class. I'll have to speak with Bathsheda about getting him into advanced classes and personal tutoring when the time comes.


	77. April 22nd

Saturday, April 22nd, 1989

Despite being the governing body of a nation with a very active presence in the ICW, the immediate decisions made in the ICW are rarely mentioned in the following Wizengamot meeting. Interestingly, that did not hold true today. Mr. Obara, during the opening remarks, praised the passage of the change in spending bill, particularly the increase in funding the understanding of muggle weaponry like the muggle device that caused the explosion on that American ship yesterday. (I did not know what he was talking about and had to ask after the meeting. Apparently there was an explosion that killed nearly 50 people.) Another Lord shot back that that did not matter or effect magicals any more than the riots in Jordan did (forgot to seek him out after speaking with Obara; need to seek out information on riots to see if they affect magical world tomorrow). It came close to an argument even before the meeting proper started.

Luckily most of the day did end up going smoothly.

The Ravenclaws have returned to the lead for the House Cup, something they had briefly lost to the Slytherins in the scuffles of the past week, and they seem determined to stay there—I had no less than three different offers to help with anything I need by Ravenclaws this evening, clearly in hopes of gathering more house points.


	78. April 23rd

Sunday April 23rd, 1989

The students were well behaved today- it was the teachers that caused my headache. Sybil's comments were just as cryptic as normal, but also clearly smug in the current accomplishments of her old house. Silvanus, who was sitting next to her and has proven to be one of the best interoperating her rambling, clearly caught something the rest of us did not, as he went to curse her and had to be held back by Minerva and Pomona.

Sybil claims to have no idea what she said to prompt that reaction and we could not ask Silvanus as he promptly passed out once he started to calm down, Poppy said it's from blood loss—one of his creatures apparently injured him again before the staff meeting, and he decided to put off taking care of the injury rather than be late.

Sometimes I question Silvanus' priorities…


	79. April 24th

Monday, April 24th, 1989

The amount of schoolwork the professors are piling on in attempts to get their students to study for the upcoming finals didn't seems to deter goofing off today—or maybe the amount of work meant they decided to de-stress by pranking, since they had the weekend to plan and set thing up. Either way, the pranking trio managed to prove the Great Hall did indeed have a ceiling today.

As soon as anyone walked into the Great Hall today, they found themselves falling upward to land with the grace of a feather light charm on the ceiling. As the tables, benches, and food were also placed firmly on the clouds, eating this way, looking like you were standing on nothing and with the floor above your head was disorienting, but little else. The largest problem was reaching the door and reversing gravity to leave.

Apparently, the trick to it was reaching the wall, where, as long as you were touching it, you were weightless and could walk yourself in either direction, and gravity reversed itself when you touched the floor. If you let go of the wall, you would float back to the ceiling, and have to start again.

Of all of the spell work involved, I'm most impressed by the fact that no matter what direction gravity lay for the student, everyone's robes stayed down, and I have not heard any rumors of it causing any problems with indecency.


	80. April 25th

Tuesday, April 25th, 1989

Zachariah's cough is back and it is bad enough that Poppy made him spend the day in the Hospital Wing while Wilhelmina took over his classes. He did seem better when I went to visit and help Quirinus bring him back to his quarters, but he was still far too pale and shook while walking. He said he would be all right to be back in front of the classroom tomorrow. It did not take Quirinus' sharp glance to decide to veto that idea, and I told him I did not want him in front of a classroom again until Thursday at the earliest. (Quirinus glared at me again for that—from what I heard when I left, he wants Zachariah to take the rest of the week off. I know better than to ask for that; giving that order is the one way I could guarantee our curse breaker would be back teaching tomorrow.)

Poppy worried—she was able to calm the cough, but she can find no sign of what caused it today. She asked permission to call in a friend from St. Mungo's next time Zachariah's cough gets this bad. I agreed—the staff's health is more important than our infirmary budget.


	81. April 26th

Wednesday April 26th, 1989

Terezinha looked like she was going to spit fire when I entered the ICW chambers today. Years ago, when she first accepted the Under Mugwump position, she warned me she was not a morning person, especially considering that, on most work days, her morning was over five hours from the mornings of her countrymen. A grumpy Terezinha is not unusual, though her professional mask hides it well. Today, she seemed willing to sacrifice her political career as long as she took someone-anyone- else down with her, and the day's session had not even started yet.

I pulled her aside and commandeered a room on the basis of a top level before session briefing, which I have had to do before when there were emergencies preventing Terezinha and I from meeting on Tuesday nights, so no one put up a fuss. Or maybe, everyone just had too much sense to argue when the Under Mugwump was scowling like that.

It turns out that the current Polish representative had accosted her as soon as she arrived this morning, about the initiative to increase communication between national governments and their muggle counterparts. It's accepted that this cannot be universal—the need for several quick memory modification charms on government officials in both the United Soviet Socialist Republic and the United States of America in order to keep the statute of Secrecy intact have proven that. But, there are other circumstances where more communication would greatly help. Terezinha has been vocal in her support for months.

The Polish representative is an old school pure blood, normally with all the airs, dignity and social graces that implies. The wizard can trace his wizarding ancestry back to some point in BC—I've never paid enough attention to know farther back than that—and he considers anyone that cannot trace their ancestry back to the time of the Roman Empire "new blood." He disapproves of the idea of increased equal cooperation, and when Terezinha was not swayed by his no doubt scintillating arguments against such actions, he became infuriated. Among the other things, he apparently yelled at her for being a "jumped up aboriginal stealing a job rightfully belonging to one of your superiors living on the continent," a "muggle loving disgrace to all wizard kind," and "not knowing her place when faced with the superior logic of a man."

The last accusation surprised me the most—I am not used to encountering sexism on any level of government, and the representative had not shown signs of it before.

Ranting allowed Terezinha to calm down and again don her professional mask. In fact, she even smiled before heading back to the meeting hall—there were always reporters around, keeping an eye on what the ICW does, and the Polish representative had not noticed the one in the room with them when he started to yell.

Since there were no incidents to overshadow it, it's just a countdown now until Poland has someone new in the ICW.


	82. April 27th

Thursday, April 27th, 1989

Ukraine's ICW representative Floo called me this morning, said I should be warned, passed me a newspaper and left. Turns out, the Polish media really does not like their representative—or really enjoys stirring up scandals. Two different Polish news networks contacted me later in the day—I told them I stand with Terezinha and turned down the interview requests.

My main question ended up being why Ukraine's ICW member receives a Polish newspaper.

Whatever Sybil did in her sixth year divination class today resulted in Minerva storming into my office and threatening a rampage if Sybil did not stay her tongue. Minerva's ranting was such that I could not figure out what happened, and Severus cackled and walked away when I tried to ask him in the corridor after dinner.


	83. April 28th

Friday, April 28th, 1989

Zachariah is back on his feet and teaching, but has taken Poppy's warnings and Quirinus' mothering exactly the way I feared. This morning Poppy burst into my office, demanding I go down to the DADA class immediately and order Zachariah to scale back his plans for the day. We had only reached his second block of classes for the morning, but Poppy had taken the time to set proximity wards on the infirmary and check on him during both, and during both classes he was demonstrating practical's, with the desks vanished, so it was clear the students would be practicing as well.

I was not willing to undermine him in front of the students by interrupting this class, which must have become clear rather quickly, as Poppy failed to calm down. She only left when her ward on the infirmary activated, sparing a last glare before taking advantage of the intra-Hogwarts floo system to get back to her office.

I went to speak with our DADA professor about overdoing it and angry healers before his third class of the day, and secured his promise to stick with theory for the rest of the day. Truth be told, he was relieved to get the order-he was drooping under his defensiveness when I arrived, and his mind proclaimed his gladness to have an excuse his pride would accept as I left.


	84. April 29th

Saturday, April 29th, 1989

Just in case I ever mistake the Wizengamot for being more dignified than the ICW—fights over Quodpot, really—today should be enough to disillusion me. I'm not sure what bribe had to be paid to the one Prophet reporter present at the session today to keep anything from covering the Daily Prophet's front page, but clearly it worked, because I did not see a hint in the evening Prophet's politics' section and, if they were planning to hold the article until the more circulated morning Prophet came out, the editors would have placed hints of something big to come. It does not get much bigger than three pureblood witches, one from the Sacred Twenty-Eight completely forgetting about their wands and getting into a hair pulling, face scratching, muggle type brawl. The national regulations over the work of mediwitches and mediwizards, especially those that don't choose to work at St. Mungo's can be a charged topic, but I didn't expect this!


	85. April 30th

A/N: Sorry for the late update-everything was ready, I was just busy enough yesterday that I forgot to post this!

Sunday, April 30th, 1989

It's the week of furious witches, apparently. Less than an hour before today's staff meeting, a house elf popped into my office, interrupting my meeting with one of the Board of Governors, with a message from Irma that I head to the library _RIGHT NOW_ as she could not leave it in another's care or close it.

When I arrived, despite the number of studiously working children, it was rather clear to see part of the issue. I commend the students for the courage to be there at all even with homework due the next day, considering the force of Irma's glare and dark mutterings as she righted a number of toppled over bookshelves.

Once the shelves were upright and the books stacked in piles at the end of the rows, where they were busy sorting themselves for later re-shelving, Irma focused enough to explain. The fallen shelves, which only failed to cause injury more serious than bruises due to her numerous safety wards, and a number of less obvious problems were caused by a student, or students, trying to break into the parts of the restricted section that are secured in a separate room—except, rather than try to make a pass to fool the door, or break the door's lock, whoever it was decided the easier way to get in would be to go through the wall, and chose a section of the wall with a shelf of rare books leaning against it on the inside of the room. A number of them are damaged beyond what Irma thinks she can repair, and we do not have it in the library budget to get them professionally fixed. Even promising to add some of my discretionary budget to some of the damaged non-restricted books did not calm her down—Irma wants the culprit's head on a spike.


	86. May 1st

Monday, May 1st, 1989

Fawkes was rather aggravated this morning, and I am still unsure as to why. He landed on my shoulder as soon as I was fully dressed this morning, a perch he hasnever seemed to favor, and refused to move, even when I needed to leave for a meeting with a group from the ICW about upcoming issues. This is only the second time Fawkes has traveled with me to any ICW related event, not counting the summer conferences.

Despite how clingy he was before we left, Fawkes was very well behaved at the meeting, staying mostly still on my shoulder, only calling out once, a low long calming trill when the representative from Paraguay went to leave. He explained that today was the muggle election for both a new president—their last one had been disposed of in a coup, Paraguay's presidency seems riddled with those—and an entirely new congress, as the last one had been disbanded because of their collusion with the former president. Who won the election would greatly affect the Wizarding-Muggle relationship and politics going forward, so he would need to be in his home country rather than at ICW meetings for at least the rest of the week. He actually stopped to smile before leaving at Fawkes' trill.

When I returned to Hogwarts, I found it festooned with flowers, and learned at dinner that anyone who entered the fifth floor corridor would find themselves dancing until they reached the other side. It seems that a number of people must have had a great deal of fun with today's May Day celebrations.


	87. May 2nd

Tuesday, May 2nd, 1989

I received owls from two professional Quidditch recruiters today. It is traditional that some show up to the last two Hogwarts games looking for talent in the 7th years; normally I just initial these letters when they show up in my inbox and send them off to Hagrid as Keeper of the Keys. These two stood out from the normal stack, because they made the same request and requested a response to know if it could be honored: they wanted to reserve seats, ones where they would, in theory, have good views of the beaters throughout the game.

Normally, seat assignments are on a first come first serve basis, with no reservations beforehand, but I decided to message Rolanda and Hagrid to see if we could manage it anyway. Rolanda agreed, and Hagrid will rope off their seats, and escort the recruiters there when they arrive. I penned a quick message to both of that effect, but I have to hope the other recruiters do not start to demand the same treatment, or I may come to regret this decision.


	88. May 3rd

Wednesday, May 3rd, 1989

The day started extremely early—the Tibetan Representative wanted a meeting with the representative from Nepal with myself as the moderator before today's session at the ICW, which, due to all of our schedules and the different time zones, meant we met at 4am. Most wizards who travel to the Tibet/Nepal border regions do so to study the creatures native to the area or to enjoy the culture—apparently that is not true for muggles. Many of them visit specifically to climb their mountains. Most of the good routes up the mountains have been mapped out in the years past, but between avalanches, rock falls, and other various factors, locals occasionally set out in search of new and hopefully safer or easier routes. Even so, this does not normally cause many problems, except that a wandering shrewdness of yeti has settled in an area that overlaps with the current area the muggles are exploring. This still would not be much of a problem, as yeti are known to be more than myths to the local muggle population, but these yeti are being studied by a wizarding group, and their encampment poses some difficulty. Either the encampment or the yetis need to be moved, but the best location switches to the other side of the international border—and the two governments were not speaking to one another because of philosophical disagreements between their two leaders.

At least, by the time the ICW session started, things had settled enough that they will not need a third party to facilitate their meetings, as long as both participants continue to represent their respective magical populations.

The pepper-up potion has worn off, and, even before I started writing this, the ICW paperwork stopped making sense. It's earlier than I normally go to bed; at least Fawkes will approve.


	89. May 4th

Thursday, May 4th, 1989

I spent today at the ministry. Despite that, we are still no closer to reaching an agreement on Minister of Magic, or even on finding a candidate that would be accepted by the majority. If I have to spend another hour in meetings discoursing who should be the next Minister of Magic, I will strangle someone.

Probably myself.


	90. May 5th

A/N:If you get alerts from me, Sorry about the mess with the current update today... I've been getting error messages when trying to update for the last four days, but managed to successfully update anyway at the start of the month; I did not realize that yesterday's did not go up until after I posted today's. Thus pulling it down to replace, etc... Anyway, that was my day, here was Dumbledore's:

Friday, May 5th, 1989

The upcoming exams notwithstanding, tomorrow's Quidditch game was the talk of the school today, or so claimed a number of Ravenclaws at today's tutoring session. A few came from studying in the library with questions, but some came because the Quidditch talk was too prevalent "even in our own common room for me to be able to work in peace. We're not even in the game tomorrow!" The Gryffindors, also not in tomorrow's game, did not seem to have the same complaints—maybe they are more used to tuning out the chaos that makes up their House.

The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, however… well, for one, the current Slytherin seeker ended up storming out of the tutoring session today only moments after the Hufflepuff reserve keeper walked in. That should be enough to explain the state those two Houses are in.

It will be interesting to find out who won after I return from the Wizengamot meeting tomorrow.


	91. May 6th

Saturday, May 6th, 1989

Minerva made quite the splash this morning, walking into the Great Hall for Breakfast. It is not entirely unusual to see her in green robes; emerald is a good color on her. But, she is careful to never pair it with silver, or in any way make it possible to mistake her clothing choices for a nod of respect or allegiance to the rival House, (I swear, she was not as bad about this when Horace was here). Today, probably in spite of all of Severus' ribbing, she pulled through with her end of the bet.

The robes were green, but her normally black hat was silver. Her belt appeared to be a silver snake, with the head serving as the buckle, eating its tail. On close inspection, the robes actually appear scaled, with most of the scales matching. However, if the light hits just right, the scales on her back form the words "Go Slytherin!" since she wore her hair in a bun today, the words would have been easily seen during the game.

The Gryffindor house was almost universally outraged.

While things had calmed down by the time I returned from the Wizengamot, helped along by the fact, as Pomona proudly told me, Hufflepuff won, Gryffindors were still shooting Minerva betrayed looks at dinner.


	92. May 7th

Sunday, May 7th, 1989

Today was the ghosts' "Quarterly Meeting with a Living Staff Member." It opened with Sir Nicholas again voicing his desire for the meeting name to be changed to something designating the living staff member as the Head or Deputy Head of Hogwarts. Failing that, he would like the name to be shorter. It was agreed that the idea had merit and would be looked into at a later date—the same introduction to the meeting as I first experienced back as Dippet's Deputy Head. The Fat Friar then raised protest for holding the meeting with only 21 ghosts attending, far fewer than normal, but, as he brought up Binns as the first ghost not attending, it was clear the protest was more for form's sake than anything else—Binns has never attended these meetings, even the six quarterly meetings I recall where all the other Hogwarts ghosts attended.

Most of the news and meeting went as expected. Edgar Cloggs did not make the meeting, instead assisting someone with flying practice, but sent word that the student he had spoken of last meeting is now fine, and calming down their reckless tendencies. Lord Draben has returned, and unfortunately confirmed the Bloody Baron's conjecture that if young Mr. Bobbin does not obtain a high enough grade in either Potions or Herbology, we should report his family to Wizarding Child Services rather than just let him return home. Considering that, according to the Sorting Hat, the one main ambition that landed him in Slytherin was the desire to take over the family's Apothecaries, that his parents are decent when the Grandparents are not demanding perfection, and his main problems stem from fooling around rather than paying attention earlier in the year, one of the green house ghosts offered to tutor him, and follow him home this year, ready to alert us if the problems do get out of hand. I'm letting the ghosts handle it, though I am glad to be kept in the loop.

Nothing else major stood out from the meeting.


	93. May 8th

Monday, May 8th, 1989

Ravenclaw House was furious with two of their own today—or proclaimed themselves to be furious, while actually too busy studying to notice or completely sympathize. Apparently, the two fifth year Eagles were so busy studying for one set of classes that they forgot an assignment due today. When they remembered, it was already past curfew but they did not have all the information they needed. Rather than wake up their dorm mates, the two of them decided that they would sneak into the library—they were caught by Irma when her alarms for non-checked out books leaving the library premises went off.

Ravenclaw is no longer in the lead for the House Cup.


	94. May 9th

Tuesday, May 9th, 1989

With the Board of Governors releasing the funds, I had a meeting with Minerva about how we would advertise the opening for an alchemy teacher. As the procedures we have used in the past worked, it just needed to be adjusted to a slightly more relaxed pace. With the main purpose of meeting being relatively simple and quickly handled, our conversation devolved into anecdotes about teaching transfiguration classes—I still have a few good ones that Minerva has yet to hear, and she has the chance to gain new ones daily.

Our meeting came to an end when the Head Boy, Mr. William Weasley, dragged two young Gryffindors to Minerva's office by their ears, literally in one case, and demanded his Head of House's assistance. I abandoned her to student drama with the excuse of preparing for my meeting with Terezinha.


	95. May 10th

Wednesday, May 10th, 1989

Terezinha introduced me to the new ICW representative from Poland after the session today. Apparently, she approached the Under Mugwump during a break this morning to offer a formal apology for the words of her predecessor. It seems Poland tried to go to as close to the opposite of their last representative as the could this time. Weronkia Nowakowski is a short, vivacious, young halfblooded witch, and, unless I am much mistaken, she has some creature blood in her recent ancestry. I would have loved to get to know her, but I had a meeting with members of the Wizengamot I needed to rush off too—thank Merlin that evening meeting was catered.


	96. May 11th

Thursday, May 11th, 1989

Barty Crouch Senior has officially been nominated for the Minister of Magic position. The only surprise coming with this is that it did not happen months ago. For all that Crouch does not have the popularity he once enjoyed, and the average witch and wizard views him as too harsh a judge for their comfort, his strong stance back in the war still gives him an edge in name recognition over Nott and Mockridge. If the vote was held today, Crouch would be the winner.

I don't trust him with that power any more than I would trust myself.


	97. May 12th

Friday, May 12th, 1989

It's rather interesting how people's study habits are well divided on House lines right now, along with their stress levels—there are exceptions, most because of normal study habits, but the majority falls easily into their stereotypes.

The Ravenclaws, while stressed, are bearing down like the have for the past month or so, focused on little to nothing else. The main exception is their Quidditch players, whose practices as they let off steam are more vicious than they have been all year.

The Slytherins tend to be right behind the Ravenclaws in stress levels; these tests will often determine their chances to make their ambitions a reality, but the politics of their House are such that few can bring themselves to be seen studying all around the castle as the Ravenclaws did, unless studying for NEWTs or OWLS. Even those without the pressure or who don't need the grades tend to be high strung because of the tension in the rest of their House.

Hufflepuff tends to be the least stressed by the entire process. There are organized study groups every night, and people from different years are all helping one another. Pomona mentioned that one of her prefects normally brings snacks and drinks to their common rooms or talks the House elves into bringing some. Their 6th year prefects keep eyes on the rest of their House, making anyone too stressed take breaks and relax, but also not allowing those breaks to last too long.

Gryffindors right now are the least stressed of the houses—if they don't have NEWTs or OWLs most are not bothering to study beyond homework, after all, exams are still three weeks away. Even those with their bigger exams are not, on average, studying as much as their other house counterparts. The panicking will start towards the end of next week.

The dichotomy between Houses was rather clearly shown during tutoring today.


	98. May 13th

Saturday, May 13th, 1989

I returned from today's Wizengamot meeting to an interesting sight—Fawkes and a large European Eagle Owl from the international owl post office trying to out hiss one another. I only had the pleasure of watching for a moment—it seems they meant to stop as soon as they became aware of my presence, but had to get in one last attempt to one up each other first. They both seemed as embarrassed as I've ever seen birds when I asked what that was I walked into. The European Eagle Owl stuck out his letter and took off as soon as I took it, and Fawkes put his head under his wing and pretended he had been asleep the entire time.

Silly phoenix.

There is some situation going on with the muggles in Panama—over a thousand American muggle troops have been sent there. Terezinha was just writing to say she was keeping an eye on the situation, and monitoring the interactions of the magical governments while she did, so I do not have to worry about that.


	99. May 14th

A/N: Sorry for this being late! In TOTALLY unrelated news, did anyone from the USA know that Amtrak's Wi-Fi networks are actually a decent speed and free for anyone traveling by train? I did not realize that yesterday, but I know it now!

Sunday, May 14th, 1989

I don't think I have been invited to participate in a prank by a student since I was still a student myself. I'm not entirely sure if a surprise party can entirely count as a prank, but it feels like it. As I entered the Great Hall for breakfast, Miss Claymore approached me with the request that I keep Pomona distracted until 11:30 and then bring her to the Greenhouses, where the Hufflepuffs were setting up a surprise party. None of my plans for this morning were so urgent that I could not either set them aside or ask Pomona for assistance, so I agreed. Pomona did ask why I requested her assistance rather than Minerva's, but I am fairly sure I assuaged her suspicions with my apologetic comments about already taking up too much of my Deputy Headmistress' time.

We were slightly late to the Green Houses—after requesting assistance, I could not come up with a reason to hurry back that did not imply that I was ungrateful for the assistance. Pomona told me later that she had suspected nothing until she stepped into Greenhouse One and her pinking shears were not by the door.

At dinner Pomona claimed to be annoyed with whomever let it slip that tomorrow is her birthday, though she admitted that she enjoyed the party and her gift from her badgers—they had worked together to finish all the day's chores in the Greenhouses before they had started the party decorations.

It was lovely to be involved in making the day special for her.


	100. May 15th

Monday, May 15th, 1989

Today's meeting at the Ministry about the school's funding was a success. The Board of Governess and I were invited to a meeting with the Ministry, specifically members of the Ministry in charge of their outgoing finances, to speak on how much government funding we will be receiving for the next school year. I am rather impressed with this year's Chair—the Ministry officials clearly planned to inform us they would be cutting some of the funding when they walked in, and instead walked out having sworn to increase our Ministry funding. I'll be able to offer a better salary than I thought to our Alchemy instructor.


	101. May 16th

Tuesday, May 16th, 1989

Today I was in charge of detentions for our brilliant wall climbers of last month. Despite my anger at their general idiocy and the fact they could have gotten themselves killed, they looked like they had been run so ragged that I could not help but feel sorry for them, and scrap my original detention plans. After all, I know they were cleaning the Owlry, both Sunday and yesterday. Instead, I required them to help me with my paperwork under the watchful eyes and stern lectures of the other Headmaster's portraits. I didn't give them anything classified, but there was plenty of paperwork to be filed, or just sorted into ICW, Wizengamot, and Hogwarts stacks, even without those. If I give them the same job tomorrow after the ICW meeting, and put up the classified paperwork in the morning, I may have my desk cleared off for the first time in months.


	102. May 17th

Wednesday, May 17th, 1989

I left today's ICW meeting still bemused by Ethiopia's representative, even though he only spoke for 30 minutes and it was towards the beginning of the day. There was an attempt at a coup in the Ethiopian muggle government yesterday. While some of their country's magic users have been quietly working with the current administration, their magical government has never officially acknowledged the end of the reign of the Ethiopian Monarchy, so some wizards felt it their duty to back anyone trying to roust those currently in power. Despite this being a muggle issue, there were wizards shamans—use the correct terminology for the location Albus—fighting on both sides, and some have died from it. Luckily the chaos was such that they contained any serious breaches of the Statute of Secrecy without the ICW being involved. Despite the speech, I remain unsure how their government will react to the muggle unrest. I am fairly certain even the Representative does not know which side he supports, and with shamans already jumping in, the government cannot stay out of it entirely.

By Merlin's staff, may the chaos be contained to their own country.

On a different note, we did successfully clear my desk, even taking into account the Wizengamot paperwork that came in while I was at the ICW. My relief was such that I offered my assistants all lemon drops despite their detention. Phineas Nigellus Black started to lecture me as soon as the students left on why I should not have done that.


	103. May 18th

Thursday, May 18th, 1989

The weather was surprisingly nice today, so there were a lot of students outside studying or flying the grounds to relax went I went out to meet with Silvanus today. That means that, while not many people were paying enough attention to notice the students roughhousing at the edge of the water and occasionally throwing each other in, there were plenty of people to witness when the Giant Squid decided that he wanted to join in the fun.

Silvanus abandoned our conversation mid-sentence once someone cast the first spell to make sure no one caused the giant squid to panic, and that no one gained major injuries, but half an hour later the students were laughing as they tried to dry out their parchment and the Squid swam off, waving tentacles in the air before it disappeared.

We had almost forgotten the purpose of our meeting by the time everything calmed down. Luckily, walking into the first enclosure under the eves of the Forbidden Forest was enough to jog the memory.

Thinking of the Forbidden Forest, I seem to recall needing to look into something about it, but I don't see that note within the last couple week's entries. I hope it wasn't important…


	104. May 19th

Friday, May 19th, 1989

The Gryffindors are starting to wake up to the fact exams are only in two weeks; some of the hunkering down to study and the actual panic is starting.

I brought some of my latest paperwork down to Classroom E-13 this morning, made an agreement with Mitzy that she would, once an hour, check my office for new messages and paperwork and bring any to me, then opened the door to give assistance to any student in need. It was 30 minutes before the first student showed up. Afterwards I even took lunch in the classroom, as there were no more than seven minutes at most between people asking for help, right up until I closed the room to head for dinner.

Most of them just needed confidence or one-on-one spell demonstrations; there were more practical than theory questions today.


	105. May 20th

Saturday, May 20th, 1989

Mr. Kapp requested to travel with me to Hogwarts after today's Wizengamot meeting. It was his second trip to Hogwarts since he originally approached me slightly over a month ago. I hesitated when he asked, reminding him of exams being right around the corner, and that Miss Ayers might not appreciate the interruption from studying.

Mr. Kapp assured me he had already spoken of this with his replacement, and that she would be meeting him in the Hogwarts library if the Wizengamot meeting let out at a reasonable time.

It was only as we walked down the path past the gates of Hogwarts—I apparated us both to Hogwarts gate rather than deal with the wait at the Fireplaces; apparently the Ministry is having trouble with the floo system today—that I noticed Mr. Kapp had an expandable bag with some of his schoolwork with him.

I see through some of his motivation now—some of it definitely is to meet with Miss Ayers, but they'll be doing more studying and mutual complaining about classes than talking about the Wizengamot—and part of his motivation is to get access to our library before his finals.


	106. May 21st

Sunday, May 21st, 1989

Quirinus has decided to go for the DADA mastery. However, Zachariah and Quirinus have worked together enough to realize that curse breaking will never be Quirinus' foray—his talents seem to lie more along the lines of active immediate defensive maneuvers, requiring Quirinus to seek out another master under which to gain his mastery.

The two of them solicited everyone's opinions on whom they should approach after the staff meeting today. It resulted in a lively conversation lasting almost an hour about different defense Masters we knew of, what they were like as students if we had taught them, teaching and learning styles, what we know of their lives since they left the schools, what they specialized in, and how well we think they would get along with Quirinus.

They left with a list of possible people; I'm not sure whom they will decide to owl first.

Zachariah's cough has returned.


	107. May 22nd

Monday, May 22nd, 1989

James Higginbotham II, despite sharing a name with his more famous ancestor, does not have anywhere near his knowledge of Alchemy, nor the flare for teaching that resulted in the first James feigning suicide in the muggle world—where he was known as James Price—and moving to Uagadou, where he taught for the rest of his life. Honestly, if it weren't for his resume, I would doubt he had learned any alchemy at all. Also, I've gone through enough Defense teachers to know that students do not tend to respect or listen to that type of windbag.

I would hire a librarian assistant and trick Irma into taking the class, despite her disinterest, before hiring him.


	108. May 23rd

Tuesday, May 23rd, 1989

Interesting encounter in the Wizengamot today—it was not a full meeting, just the small group that has been looking into updating our travel laws—they brought in a number of Wizengamot councilors outside their group to get a larger opinion base on the information they were receiving from the magic experts that were also invited to the meeting. All but one of the magic carpet experts could speak English. The one who could not was the one I met first, waiting outside the conference room. Since I was early for once, and neither of us deemed the matter urgent, we traded phrases in different languages rather than move straight to translation charms.

We found we did have one language in common—Merish. We gained a great deal of amusement, talking to each other in the language of the water, without anyone present understanding a word we said.


	109. May 24th

Wednesday, May 24th, 1989

Zachariah has vehemently refused Poppy's request that he return to the infirmary for her to do another comprehensive check, or to allow her to bring in another Healer to look him over. The most the stubborn old curse breaker will accept are a few cough-relief potions. He says that now, unlike last time, the cough isn't hindering him any and he has no intention of missing any of the last days before exams. Poppy and Zachariah have been arguing about this since the latest reoccurrence of Zachariah's cough. When I returned from the ICW meeting just in time for dinner, I discovered that the fearless DADA professor had chosen to skip dinner rather than face the harrowing healer.

With Quirinus keeping an eye on him, I doubt there really is anything to worry about, he'll make sure Zachariah eats at least, so I choose to be amused by the situation.


	110. May 25th

Thursday, May 25th, 1989

How many times do I have to tell people that I am uninterested in being the Minister of Magic? It does not seem to have sunk in yet!

I had an interview with the Daily Prophet today—at least they had the sense not to send their new investigative journalist, Rita Skeeter; she was always a gossip Queen in Hogwarts, and vicious with what she knew and spread—I would have refused the interview despite the pre scheduling if they had.

The main questions were, unsurprisingly, about what I thought of the nominees and my politics versus theirs, mostly couched in terms of how well the Wizengamot would be able to work with each one after my initial refusal to endorse any candidate. It is an unwise policy for the Chef Warlock to endorse a candidate; especially if the candidate does not win. It is taboo for the Supreme Mugwump to weigh in on any country's elections, even their own. What part of this do people not understand?

The article, according to the Prophet when they set up the meeting, is about how the nomination and election process works, not about me.


	111. May 26th

Friday, May 26th, 1989

Miss Macshím brought her finished project to the tutoring session today, in hopes that I would read it and tell her if it needed more edits one more time before she turns it in. Considering how long it is, rather than neglect the other students I borrowed the parchment and will be returning it before breakfast in the morning. There are only two short sections that need revision, and a small handful of grammar mistakes.

This was the second busiest tutoring session I have held this school year, only beaten by the one in November when the near entirety of the third year class came because they were having problems with one of the assigned potions and not even the Slytherins wanted to ask Severus. (As Severus has still been fuming and had yet to re-grow his hair from the accident during his 6th year NEWT course, this was an understandable reaction; the problem for the third years turned out to be that the newest edition of the book had the wrong units for one of the ingredients.) We ended up going over my normal time again, and I almost missed dinner.

Poor Miss Penelope Clearwater burst into tears after her spell to turn rabbits into slippers failed to remove their ears, convinced that since they did not look like plain slippers, she would completely fail. I managed to coach her through this, and didn't mention that many wizards deliberately flub the spell in the method she was using to make bunny slippers.

Luckily Miss Clearwater was the only student to end in tears this week. I predict I will have at least three crying next Friday.


	112. May 27th

Saturday, May 27th, 1989

Gryffindor handily won the last Quidditch game of the year today, and with it the Quidditch Cup. Upon my return from the Wizengamot, Minerva treated me to a play-by-play of the game, interspersed with praises for the team's brilliant captain and seeker, Charlie Weasley. With him leading the team, Minerva is certain that the cup will reside in her office for not just this upcoming year, but for the two years beyond that.

Filius later did admit that it was a good game, and Mr. Weasley made a stunning catch, but not until Minerva was out of earshot.


	113. May 28th

Sunday, May 28th, 1989

Exactly one more week before exams begin. All lessons planned for this week are revisions and reviews, hoping for the last minute confidence boost and breakthrough for the students. Today's staff meeting was short and frantic, as every professor still had stacks of work to finish grading and return to students this week, most of it the review work assigned and turned in last week…

Ah, I remember that rush and frantic hurry, and not fondly. After the others rushed from the staff meeting, I stayed behind and had a lovely tea with Wilhelmina, Rolanda (since the flying lessons are all practical's, she did not have any parchment to grade) Poppy, Argus, and Hagrid. I enjoyed the chance to relax.


	114. May 29th

A/N: Sorry for not getting this up yesterday, I managed to somehow temporarily break Word, so that it froze every time I tried to load the document where I write the journal entires. I finally got it working today (Turning the computer off and leaving it off overnight seems to have done the trick) so here's yesterday's entry and today's will immediately follow.

Monday, May 29th, 1989

Iona Baker, a Hufflepuff who graduated two years past, came to Hogwarts today—rushed to Hogwarts might be a better way to put it. I happened to be returning from Hogsmead when she apparated in and started running for the gate. She slowed down when I hailed her, turning and giving me a view of her full arms; she was carrying what I at first took to be multiple dogs.

It turns out that she currently works for the Pest Control subdivision of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and today she had been part of what was supposed to be a regular rousting of a population of nogtail. Unexpectedly, one of the farms requesting nogtail removal turned out to run several illegal breeding programs for magical creatures, and many of the creatures there showed signs of abuse. Their on call veterinarians are slightly overwhelmed, and do not have time for individual care for those more traumatized than injured. Iona, who had made friends with Fang during her time here, was actually looking for Hagrid—hoping he would be willing to foster and maybe even adopt the Cerberus she was carrying. He's the only survivor of the litter, and, considering he is still small enough to carry, he is extremely young—he will need a lot of individual attention.

Three headed dogs are extremely rare, and so is the knowledge of how to properly care for them—as the death of the rest of the little guy's littermates attest. Hagrid does have the knowledge, though, so at least "Fluffy," as Hagrid has already named him, will get a happy ending.


	115. May 30th

Tuesday, May 30th, 1989

With all the students studying for exams, Hogwarts feels unnaturally quiet. Not just the quiet it gets over the summer, when only the House elves, some of the ghosts and a few of the staff remain—and even Peeves seems subdued—but the strange quiet before a storm. It was rather eerie.

Admittedly, I do not think it will last much longer—I caught sight of Miss Selwyn having a word with Miss Page, and there has yet to be an end of year prank large enough that I would pin it to that trio, and I cannot see a prankster leaving Hogwarts without attempting one last stunt in their final days.


	116. May 31st

Wednesday, May 31st, 1989

It seems that has been a lot of unrest in the Muggle world this past week—or just in the muggle locations that most inconvenience the magical world. Nearly every conversation I overheard as I left the ICW contained complaints. For example, riots and protests mean you have to apparate or floo rather than walk into two main government buildings in different cities in China. Muggle Argentina has declared its entire nation under a state of siege—which resulted in the arrest of many witches and wizards by muggle authorities or required obliviations for resisting arrest, as the magical authorities didn't announce the siege protocols until half a day later.

I left before I could hear any more when one of the Soviet representatives started to dissolve into hysterical laughter, just choking out "You think that's bad…"

I do not want to know.


	117. June 1st

Thursday, June 1st, 1989

This is an unusual turnabout; normally, I end up needing to unload work on Minerva in order to finish things by their deadlines—today my deputy Headmistress had to unload her work on me! A group of NEWT students studying minor self transfiguration for the exams was interrupted by Peeves, causing more than one spell to go wrong. Poppy could fix it all herself, but that could take upwards of two weeks, and, with 18 students in the infirmary, and exams staring in four days, the students do not have that type of time. So, Minerva, Wilhelmina, and, during their little free time Filius and Septima have been recruited to try and figure out what spells were actually cast, and how to reverse the effects.

Minerva did not have any grading left to do, but she did have paperwork generated for a head of house and the deputy head—I added that to my ICW paperwork from yesterday, and let her focus on the students. Last I heard from Mimsy, when the house elf was scolding me for requesting more tea rather than going to sleep, the combined work has been largely successful, and there are only three students remaining in the infirmary tonight.


	118. June 2nd

Friday, June 2nd, 1989

It turns out I underestimated how many people would cry at tutoring today—though only three were crying because they were sure they would fail everything. Another two gave into tears of sheer frustration, and one seventh year broke down because her best friend is the only student still under Poppy's care from yesterday's transfiguration accident—I sent her to the infirmary, since the fact her tears were coming out as black ink rather than water proved that she had not escaped the effect entirely the way she had originally claimed, and were rather alarming to see in their own right.

Sir Nicholas came by to pass on that the Bloody Baron had Peeves under control, and there would not be another similar incident this exam season—the Baron was furious that a number of his Snakes were caught up in the accident.


	119. June 3rd

Saturday, June 3rd, 1989

It seems that by skipping breakfast in the Great Hall this morning, I missed the first reactions to Miss Page's final Hogwarts prank; the last great performance of Miss Page, Miss Selwyn and Mr. Higgs as a trio. I only missed it as I do not decorate with House colors in my office, and I left for the Wizengamot meeting earlier than normal in order to speak with Professor Marchbanks—thus meaning I missed by only minutes Minerva and Severus jointly storming my office.

Luckily, things had not worn off by the time I returned. It seems our pranksters took issue to the House colors, and decided to change them to their liking. Everything in Hogwarts, including crests on everyone's robes, but not including other personal belongings, in house colors were changed to fit the new color system. Hufflepuff yellow was now a strong teal, with white covering what had been black. Ravenclaw found orange replacing their blue, partnered with a green too yellow to be mistaken for Slytherin's normal colors. Gryffindor's woke to their red lightened to a bright hot pink, with an ugly brown replacing the gold. Slytherins discovered themselves festooned in lilac rather than green, with a soft complementing pink replacing their silver.

Color Changing charms were able to change back portions of the issue, but not everything, and the colors were not fading on their own.

It was Septima, with apparently Silvanus and Rolanda's unwitting assistance, who finally figured out how the prank worked—Septima spent dinner scribbling down equations, as she had apparently been doing all day, when she yelled at the other two to repeat what they had just said. Upon repetition, she scribbled something more down, yelled "Eureka!" and ran to the front hallway.

Our pranksters managed to lock a resonance charm on the large Hogwarts crest in the entrance, linking it with the secondary ones on the crests making the House Points Hourglasses. This spread any color change placed on the first crest onto everything locked to the Hogwarts wards—which is why personal belongings remained unaffected.

Once the colors were changed back, I had to unweave the resonance spell from the school wards—it had already decided the resonance was part of itself.

Pity the other professors were there, so I had to remove it completely, the color changing would have been very amusing to play with over the summer.


	120. June 4th

Sunday, June 4th, 1989

The professors of the Wizarding Examinations Authority arrived today. It's hard to believe that NEWTs and Owls start tomorrow and the school year is almost over, but Professor Marchbanks has again taken residence in her preferred guest room, I've met the two new WEA members, and the exam spaces have been set up.

It's the calm before the storm for the staff. All the paperwork is finished in preparation for the delusions of exams, even mine, though I have nothing upcoming to grade. The students are too busy studying to make problems for anyone other than Irma, and Poppy was proud to say at dinner that her infirmary was empty of patients, though she has a large stock of headache relievers and sleeping potions on hand that will inevitably be needed.

Mitzy's report on Harry says that everything is fine.

Things are wrapping up…


	121. June 5th

Monday, June 5th, 1989

Normally I stay in Hogwarts for the entirety of the first day of exams, just in case; today, for the first time since the last war, I did not—the ICW called me in. It wasn't for long, fortunately, but the circumstances themselves were anything but. Yesterday, in Russia there was an explosion at some train tracks while two trains were passing. We do not yet have a final count on the dead; these were muggle trains, this was a muggle area, and hundreds of juggles died. However, we can also confirm the deaths of seven wizards so far, and with some missing and three in the nearest wizarding hospital, there is a high probability that the number will rise.

The International Unspeakables have sent out an investigation team to join with the Soviets own investigations to ensure that this really was a natural explosion, not something caused by magic, and to help look for magicals among the injured and dead. We will get their preliminary report be Wednesday, and a thorough one hopefully by this time next week.

I truly hope this turns out not to be something done by one of ours, and my thoughts go out to all the muggles affected by this.


	122. June 6th

Tuesday, June 6th, 1989

Nothing called me from school today, at least. Terezinha and I held our Tuesday meeting earlier than normal. A breakfast meeting for her and a teatime meeting for myself, so that I would be free to entertain Hogwart's guests in the evening.

I ended up giving a tour for the WEA's new members, and a few older ones, of things that have recently changed and of some of the areas and passages that are practically staff only. I made the promise that, at some point later in the week, I will invite them down to have tea in the kitchen.

Our elves went into a quiet frenzy when I warned them, despite the kitchen already being in practically perfect condition.


	123. June 7th

Wednesday, June 7th, 1989

The preliminary reports about the Russian train crash were presented at the ICW meeting today. The Soviet investigation found no sign of magical interference, and the Unspeakables own findings corroborated with that.

Confirmed magical deaths have risen to eleven, and there are four more still in the hospital.

Nothing else from the meeting was memorable, especially compared to returning and discovering that one of our students had a slight breakdown, and the corridor outside the Great Hall was now infested by hamsters. That has since been sorted out.


	124. June 8th

Thursday, June 8th, 1989

Since exams for the lower years do not last the full two weeks of the NEWTs and OWLs, I decided I should make good on my promise of tea in the kitchens today, before the students have enough free time that a number of them will be barging into the kitchen for snacks and picnic supplies.

Only six of the examiners were both free and inclined to join me, but that number did include the two that extracted the promise of Kitchen Tea from me, so since we all enjoyed ourselves, I counted the tea as a success.


	125. June 9th

Friday, June 9th, 1989

With the end of the week came the actual end of exams for some of the younger students. It was interesting to see the combination of exhausted celebration from those who are finished, or the equal mix of relieved for the break before their exams resume Monday, and those who have already dove back into studying for the tests that remain.

Truly, it was quiet today, the quietest it will be, if this year holds true to the pattern, until the students leave. Each day from now until then will get louder, with students recovering from exams and proceeding to celebrate the time they have left with friends, away from parents and obligations.

Rolanda is already getting pestered about pick up Quidditch games.


	126. June 10th

Saturday, June 10th, 1989

I know I should not be surprised by the Wizengamot anymore after all these years, but did we just hold a four hour debate over the advisability of allowing nominations for Minister of Magic to come from any ministry official who can bring their nomination to the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot? That is already considered an archaic practice, and all the nominees have gone through the normal official channels, where the Chief Warlock just needs to acknowledge them formally eventually—I am still annoyed about the ICW interruption for Nott's nomination—and sign a sheet of paper. The nomination via Chief Warlock route has not been used since before I took a place on the Wizengamot as the Hogwarts Delegate years ago, yet most of today's session was spent on considering whether the option should still be on the books.

It was voted not to change the rules for nomination in the end. At least it was not a complete waste of time, since the arguments on either side resulted in their proponents bringing up many obscure laws and educating a large portion of the Wizengamot on facts of our own history that they did not know.


	127. June 11th

Sunday, June 11th, 1989

Professor Josiah Tofty of the Wizarding Examination Authority has more fascinating stories from his time teaching in the floo-in school and grading exams with the WEA that I would have expected. I had also forgotten that I am the only member still on staff from the time Tofty agreed to substitute for a teacher and ended up teaching here for almost a year. He does not tell stories often; I am not sure whether it was Filius or the new witch on the Authority whose name I have forgotten sitting on Tofty's opposite side that prompted him into starting, but I am grateful to whichever one it was.

Most of the staff and the Authority remained at the tables for two hours after lunch normally ends to listen. We only broke the gathering up when the House elves started pointedly popping in and out of the great hall.

This week's staff meeting managed to be even shorter than the one two weeks ago, with everyone having already used up a decent portion of the time they meant to spend grading.


	128. June 12th

Monday, June 12th, 1989

While I know nothing will actually happen while I am out of Hogwarts, I do not like leaving during exams, but even as Supreme Mugwump I cannot ask that the ICW revolve around Hogwarts' schedule. So instead of staying in my office, catching up on paperwork and fretting about exams, I spent today in meetings through the ICW about dragon santuaries.

At least its more interesting than most of my paperwork?


	129. June 13th

Tuesday, June 13th, 1989

The Head of the International Unspeakables joined Terezinha and I during our evening meeting with a full report of the Russian train crash and the news that the Unspeakables consider their portion of the work to be finished, and so have pulled out, going back to their normal tasks.

The final death toll among the magicals remains at 11, a thankfully paltry number compared to the muggle 645, but it remains this low due to magical interference that was not originally caught. Everyone focused so completely on looking for magical causes of the accident that non-intentional magic caused by the accident almost slipped past. Luckily, a since obliviated muggle accident investigator mentioned an inexplicable undamaged area within the hearing of one of the Russian Aurors.

It turns out that a remarkable under age half-blooded witch had been standing in the center of that patch of undestroyed land during the explosion, along with her muggle mother and two younger siblings. The explosion triggered a reaction in her magical core, resulting in her creating and maintaining a large shield spell over just enough area to protect her family and those between the family members, as one of her siblings had been several feet away. This was not noticed immediately as the mother did not have the correct vocabulary to explain what happened when she brought her unconscious daughter to the hospital. She is still unconscious from magical exhaustion, but the healers say she will make a full recovery.

If only all the reports I received from the Unspeakables contained as much good news to go with the bad as this one.


	130. June 14th

Wednesday, June 14th, 1989

This. This nonsense I returned from the ICW to deal with is why we should know better than to arrange the exam schedule so that the lower years have so much free time between the ending of their classes and the ending of NEWTs and OWLs and the trip sending them all home.

It rained today, so very few if any, students went outside, cutting quidditch, flying practice and picnics or lounging by the lake out of possible activities—resulting in a number of students sticking to their common rooms that would normally be using up their energy outside. Both Ravenclaw and Slytherin had major incidents of upper years cursing the younger students for interrupting their studying—a NEWT student in Ravenclaw and an OWL student among the Snakes. The Eagle shooting curses hit a student in front of his sibling, and it resulted in a room wide brawl. It apparently took over two hours for Poppy to sort everyone out.

At least the Gryffindors went the more straightforward route—they have exiled all non-studiers, who have in turn taken over another room off the same corridor as the Fat Lady's portrait, and turned it into a funhouse replica of their common room. The exile apparently involved literally throwing people out of the portrait hole in some cases—someone had placed a softening and bounce charm on the floor right outside to stop injuries.

I really hope it is not raining tomorrow, or I will be tempted to break out the weather spells, despite knowing all the reasons messing with weather patterns are a bad idea.

.


	131. June 15th

Thursday June 15th, 1989

Of all the days to lodge this complaint and bribe your way into calling an emergency meeting with the Hogwarts Board of Governors, why now, less than a week before it is relevant and far too late to change things?

A very well off couple from Hogsmeade acted completely irate that the morning of the 19th, Hogsmeade station would be closed to all but Hogwarts students, and the only train to leave would be the Hogwarts Express. This is not a new policy, it's been this way since only two years after the station was built, due to the catastrophe not changing the schedules had caused during the train station's second year of existence. Six times a year, the station is closed to all non-Hogwarts personnel. There are still trains the day before, the day after, and even just later in the afternoon.

If they have the money to convince the Board to meet on less than no notice over the method of student transportation, then they have the money to hire a portkey maker, a professional side-along apparator, or just use the floo and then a muggle taxi; all of those options would be faster than a train anyway. If they were really desperate, they can even use the Knight Bus. I am not sympathetic to their whining.

While the Governors might have been sympathetic to their money, by the time the meeting was over, none of the Board of Governors held any sympathy for their whining either.

To top this day off, it is still raining. The Fat Friar talked me out of using weather charms.


	132. June 16th

Friday, June 16th, 1989

It continued to rain today, but it seems not to have dampened the moods of our Fifth and Seventh years at all. Parties for the end of exams broke out in multiple places, including the Quidditch field, where someone decided to mimic Dedalus Diggle and turned the rain into shooting stars. Luckily the stars did not injure the impromptu Quidditch players. I have been given an invitation to an "It's our last full day in Hogwarts so why not" party on Sunday, hosted by the Seventh year Hufflepuffs and with all the Seventh years and most of the staff invited to attend. I think I can clear enough time to make it.

As I cannot bow out of my Wizengamot duties tomorrow, I said my goodbyes to the Wizarding Examination Authority at dinner. May their travels be safe and the grading go quickly.


	133. June 17th

Saturday, June 17th, 1989

I am happy to say it did not rain today at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, it was raining in London, which I discovered because I decided to walk when I needed to go two blocks from the Ministry after the Wizengamot meeting; it was also raining in the United States of America when I needed to step outside to get past the anti-apparition wards around the international floo to travel to my meeting with all the North American ICW delegates.

It's unfortunate that the rain following me around happened to be the most interesting thing to transpire for me today; things were much more entertaining at Hogwarts. What I thought to be our pranking trio's final act was either not their final one, or we have more epic pranksters in Hogwarts than I thought. Maybe the success of one great color changing charm prompted the ideas for the use of another?

Since I was in North America at the beginning of dinner, I missed this, but Aurora was kind enough to lend me her memory afterwards. The candles in the Great Hall do not normally drip wax, though the spell to allow the semblance of it has been used for special occasions, probably thus why it did not cause great comment when the wax appeared to drip as everyone walked into dinner. Things only changed once everyone sat down and most of those present had their meals already on their plates. Up until that moment, when the candle "wax" hit anything, it vanished. Abruptly, rather than vanish, the "wax" started to land, creating splashes of color wherever they hit, tables, chairs, floor, robes, hair, anywhere except the food. Wax headed for food seemed to hit a dome over its plate or serving dish and slide to the sides, landing in a splash of color on the tables.

The splashes represented the full rainbow of colors, and would have been intriguing to watch in person, but they only lasted 15 minutes, thus ending two minutes before I entered the Hall. Quite disappointing.


	134. June 18th

Sunday, June 18th, 1989

We officially delayed today's staff meeting until after the students have left tomorrow.

The Seventh year Hufflepuffs put on an exceedingly wonderful party in a room off the main corridor by the Great Hall that I am fairly certain is normally located two floors away, near the most direct route to the Astronomy tower; but, the room was exceedingly perfect for this purpose. I stayed for over two hours, but bowed out to check on the preparations for the end of year feast when it looked like I would be asked to break the tie in the judging of a Charms completion for the third time.

Slytherin won the House Cup again this year, and Severus is rightly proud of his Snakes. He did not need to taunt Minerva so much at the End of Year Feast, however. I am fairly certain he was just too caught up in his rivalry with Gryffindor to remember that it has been even longer since Hufflepuff won the Cup or think of how his remarks would come across to Pomona—I caught a flash of remorse even through all of Severus' shields when he caught sight of her expression, and he did allow Silvanus to change the topic.

The feast was as grand as always. A good sendoff for the students.


	135. June 19th

Monday, June 19th, 1989

Today began with one of the most bittersweet parts of the year—the ceremony for the Seventh years, ending as always with the staff lining the hallway as they walk to the main door, where our Groundskeeper waits to bring them to the boats for one last journey. Most of them will never set foot on Hogwarts ground again. I wore my charmed robes with the moving bumblebees.

Our delayed staff meeting was supposed to begin half an hour after the students left. Things were hectic enough, and melancholy enough—many great students left this year with the world at their feet, from William Weasley, our Head Boy who already has a job offer from Gringotts, to Lalia Claymore, the resident werewolf who starts an internship tomorrow, and a great many bets now will never be settled, as the student they were bases on no longer attends—that it did not start until an hour after. The house elves sent up Firewhiskey, wine, and a number of snacks they never bother with while students are around, and the meeting stayed on topic for less time than it was delayed before it turned into a party, celebrating the end of grading for the next two months. I wish I could have celebrated the end of paperwork along with them, but the ICW Conference starts in five days.


	136. June 20th

Tuesday, June 20th, 1989

Day one of "clean up from the children and attempt to do all the end of school year paperwork" is finished. I managed to complete about a quarter of the stack, but some of those were duplicates where I could just use a duplication charm.

Terezinha and I met this afternoon despite not holding an ICW meeting tomorrow, to discourse strategies for the start of the conference. I think we have a good handle on at least the first two weeks.

Almost forgot, I have done so much since then—my meeting with the King's Cross station master went far more diplomatically and without the unnecessary guilt trips of last time. It seems our students were relatively well behaved on yesterday's trip.


	137. June 21st

Wednesday, June 21st, 1989

What were they even thinking? We have witches and wizards up on charges in front of the Wizengamot after today. At least the 26 that the Aurors retrieved from the muggle jails had the sense not to fight an arrest or cast while surrounded by the muggle police. (They just had fines to pay.)

Today was the summer solstice—and at least 34 members of our brilliant magical community decide they should celebrate it at Stonehenge—as did over 400 muggle "hippies" according to the news report I am reading. The muggles arrested 250 of them, including the 26 magicals, without conflict. Hopefully, the only actual conflict the muggle police dealt with today never makes it to the muggle news—since those were with seven of the eight up in front of the Wizengamot for cursing the muggles in full view of many other muggles and thus breaching the Statute of Secrecy in attempts to resist arrest. (The eighth apparated straight into Stonehenge and started spelling up party decorations and a glowing clock before realizing he was standing next to an incredibly unimpressed policeman—luckily he was the father of a muggleborn and a contact between the police and auror departments.)

How hard would it have been to just apparate away, or failing an apparition license, cast simple notice-me-not or invisibility charms rather than head straight to the offensive curses?


	138. June 22nd

Thursday, June 22nd, 1989

This morning started before sunrise again—but I did manage to finish all the urgent and vitally important Hogwarts paperwork before I left for the Wizengamot to start the organization of the trials of the eight Solstice revelers from yesterday, and to officially pass on my responsibilities to my Deputy Warlock for the duration of the ICW conference.

Minerva, I know, has watched as I have been nominated, elected and appointed for position after position and does not resent the extra work and responsibilities that have been heaped on her as the Deputy Headmistress as a result, but I am unsure as to whether the Deputy Warlock feels the same. Admittedly, he was part of the Wizengamot when they decided to nominate and elect me as Chief Warlock in two sessions, both of which I missed due to an emergency calling our DADA professor to Australia, necessitating my covering of her classes. But the Wizengamot had no way of knowing that the Minister would appoint me to the ICW to keep me out of the ministry less than a year later, forcing me to start dumping work on the Deputy Warlock that he normally would not need to handle. His feelings on this have remained incredibly inscrutable over the years, and he has strong enough Occlumency shields that I cannot learn more without actively prying.

Despite my pleas and attempts at bribery, after returning to Hogwarts, Fawkes still would not transport me to the ICW conference center or our lodgings for the duration. I took the long route instead, but I have now passed security and am writing this in the hotel before heading to sleep. Fawkes is sleeping snugly on his perch in the corner of the room, the only item I have bothered to unpack from the luggage the house elves handed me before leaving. I should probably check what is in there before the opening ceremonies tomorrow.


	139. June 23rd

Friday, June 23rd, 1989

It is interesting to see how many representatives here for the conference are not the ones at the less high profile day-to-day meetings and operations from the rest of the year. Nearly a tenth of the Magical Communities involved in the ICW sent either entirely different representatives of the normal members are suddenly being introduced as the junior members or the delegations to the hordes of press that have descended on the Conference Halls. It could even seem believable from those I have met year in and year out at conferences and only at conferences.

The Opening Ceremonies proceeded as they normally do, with neither major disaster nor transcendent success, with only a minor delay as one of the press corps nearly splintched themselves attempting to get around anti-apparition barriers. I remember worrying about that the first year I was appointed to the ICW, but it's practically a tradition by this point—I think I would be more worried about the type of omen it was if it did not happen.

My opening speech was well received; better in fact than last years, which I had agonized over for days. What does it say about the ICW that they like my hastily thrown together notes written while filling out Hogwarts end of year paperwork and finalized around Ministry trials better than a well planed out speech?

What does that say about me?


	140. June 24th

Saturday, June 24th, 1989

The Opening Ball yesterday evening was more productive than the meeting today. Most of the day was spent refreshing everyone of the agenda for the conference, and passing the agenda with a detour into a Statute of Secrecy discussion that was already in the agenda for next month, with a discussion of lifting or placing sanctions on the countries that have had the most trouble keeping the Statute on their own.

If I had gone to the Wizengamot meeting and asked Terezinha to cast an illusion of me in my seat, I doubt I would have missed anything or anyone would have noticed the difference.


	141. June 25th

Sunday, June 25th, 1989

Sundays and Mondays are technically the two days officially off from the conference, since most Ministries meet at least one of those days if a representative needs to talk to their people back home. In all practicality, if a representative is not at least at some of the meetings on those two days, some members of the press will notice, pass it on to the "correct" people, and it will be in the politics section of their national news the next day, unless they have a very good reason.

The highlight of my day was finally getting to listen to Weronika Nowakowski, the new Polish delegate, speak, and then having a chance to talk to her at lunch. Terezinha was right, we do get along well.


	142. June 26th

Monday June 26th, 1989

I can tell what will be one of the major issues of the conference already. The MCUSA is calling for greater funding for the branch of the International Unspeakables focusing on muggle technology and for them to be separated into their own department. They argue that their best diviners and seers say that muggle technology will grow and advance rapidly in the next two decades; we will need to keep up and evolve ourselves to stay separate or we will have only another decade beyond that at most before the Statute of Secrecy would be irreparable. I agree that muggle technology should be its own division rather than part of the Unspeakables, but the MCUSA us being alarmist about muggles ability to discover us. I have lived 108 years—long enough to know muggle technology changes quickly, but it won't change to the point where it could expose us that quickly. Some of the delegates from the USSR states are pushing back in the other direction, saying the ICW is spending too much on Unspeakables and International Muggle Studies, and this should be the responsibility of each country's own Obliviators (and their own pocketbooks) rather than something dealt with on an international level. I think one of the Unspeakables annoyed someone at a high level in the Russian government during the train tragedy in June, and they would rather remove any need for more outside oversight.

They do have a point on both budget and governmental responsibilities.

Both sides of this will be argued to exhaustion before this conference is over, I would bet.


	143. June 27th

Tuesday, June 27th, 1989

Today marked the start of the first full week of the ICW 1989 Summer Conference, and it went as smoothly as planned, which was far more smoothly than expected. People were civil, no one ran over their time, and if anything went wrong with the facilities or catering it wasn't something I noticed.

I hope this is an omen for how the rest of the conference will go.


	144. June 28th

Wednesday, June 28, 1989

Until today, I was unaware that New Zealand's chosen representative was a former professional Quidditch player for the Moutohara Macaws. This fact came out because the mascot apparently decided to visit his old friend, and a phoenix flaming into a room and settling on someone's shoulder tends to attract attention. Like any who follow Quidditch, I have heard of Sparky, but I have never met him and if Fawkes knew him from before he choose my companionship, it was long enough ago that I could detect no familiarity from him—just excitement at seeing another one of his kind. Lance Harris and I were treated to a rather amazing display of aerial acrobatics from the pair before Sparky choose to return to his Quidditch team—or wherever the phoenix decided to flame off to after dinner.

I wish I had not forgotten my pensive at Hogwarts; I'd put this memory in immediately. I don't want to let that beauty fade with time.


	145. June 29th

Thursday, June 29th, 1989

We have been here for just under a week, and those who are not normally delegates are already making themselves stand out. We did not need the rehashing of old presentations without a single new point arising on either side of the argument because the presenters were not there to here it the first time. At least they were presented as single cohesive arguments rather than points coming up over successive meetings the way it happened originally, and the quotes will work well with the reporters.

Still, I made a game out of guessing the boredom levels from those who had heard it all before. I wonder how many others could accurately tell who were bored? I know most of the others watching did not have the advantage of legilimency but there are other skills that could help with that too…


	146. June 30th

Friday, June 30th, 1989

A banshee doesn't cry just once. Zachariah feels sick again, and there is a problem with the muggle government in Sudan. Minerva fire called today to inform me about Zachariah; Poppy does not think he will recover enough to teach next year. It seems the curse has struck again. I do not know the details with Sudan—I do not think anyone yet knows the full details—but the Sudanese representative, as a courtesy to me as the Supreme Mugwump, informed me of instability in their country.

Mainly, they told me that there was a coup attempt in progress within the muggle side of Sudan, and as such they would be delaying their plea for assistance with their nundu problem until things have calmed down slightly, or the nundu family takes a turn for the aggressive. In return, I passed on the Scamander's current contact location. Considering that I know Newt still has the nundu from Zimbabwe, he might have ideas to help.

I hope it clears quickly. A single nundu is bad enough; a mother with cubs that close to civilization could bring about disaster.


	147. July 1st

Saturday, July 1st, 1989

Today's session was supposed to be about Magical Creature Sanctuaries, along with the location and maintenance there of. I suppose I should not be surprised that if degenerated into budget squabbles, but I found myself surprised when this turned into a debate over funding anyways. A very civilized argument, admittedly, with only barely raised voices and no spells cast. But it neatly segued from who was covering the funds for the clean up and repairs of the North Pacific Ocean Sanctuary after the Exxon Valdez oil spill to the amount of funding for Muggle Technology Deception. (If the ICW spent less on that, we could put more funding into dealing with multi-national or international emergencies was the main argument presented here.)

At least the representatives from Ukraine and Bulgaria agreed to open negotiation for increasing their funding assistance to the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary.


	148. July 2nd

Sunday, July 2nd, 1989

I attended a dinner party co-hosted by the Mali and Burkina Faso delegations this evening. I am sure my choice of theirs versus the ones hosted by the MCUSA or the USSR delegations was seen as something of a political coup, but I was not willing to listen to either countries' litany of complaints with the other, joined with the list of reasons of its own superiority; especially since it would start on both sides with the identical complaint of "They are letting muggle politics and policies poison their relationship with us!" The dinner I attended held a much greater variety of conversational topics.

I received a message from the Deputy Warlock—the Wizengamot requires that I return for a meeting tomorrow, dealing with the fallout of an accidental village wide love charm.

I will put in an appearance here after breakfast, but spend the majority of the day in the ministry, and I will use the excuse of being in England again anyway to retrieve my pensive.


	149. July 3rd

Monday, July 3rd, 1989

Frustrations at the Wizengamot and the Ministry have been running high whenever someone mentions the upcoming elections for our next Minister of Magic—coworkers who have always gotten along are getting into fights, rational discussions end in raided voices and people storming out, and it seems the majority of the people are just in the "I'm not interested in any of them" camp, (outside the Ministry, most people are not that interested, or are quick to point out the period for nominations has not yet closed, so they aren't paying attention to the candidates yet.) The sheer frustration levels resulted in something extremely unexpected today—while heading to a meeting with a number of Wizengamot and Ministry members about the village love charm incident, someone brought up the dissatisfaction with the options again. Mr. Obara threw up his hands at the comment, snapping "No one is satisfied with the options. They would rather vote for the random Joe on the street than their options. In fact—" he paused, looked around the lounge area we had just entered as we waited for our meeting room to empty of its former occupants, and zeroed in on the one wizard walking past who was not involved. "You! Yes, you, get over here! I nominate you for Minister of Magic! Chief Warlock, you have witnessed the nomination. What is your name, by the way?"

And this is how a precedent that has not been used in many a year became relevant again and a very confused Cornelius Fudge, Junior Minister of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, has ended up as our Fourth Nominee for the Minister of Magic.


	150. July 4th

Tuesday, July 4th, 1989

By Merlin's Long Bloody Beard! I forgot to pick up my pensive!


End file.
